Bright bird feeders made from recycled materials flew off the shelves when a team of teenage entrepreneurs from Involve took them to the White Rose Shopping Centre last week.
The students who are all in Years 9 and 10 at schools in Leeds, have been working at the Involve alternative education centre in Hunslet as part of the iVenture initiative, designing innovative products for the consumer market.
The initiative also involves the students in market research, product design, material sourcing, marketing and sales. All carried out within a concentrated period.
Course tutor Peter Pickavance, who developed iVenture with colleagues, said:
“This has given our young entrepreneurs a platform from which they can display their creative talent and as a team, they hit on the idea of a seasonally based product that would be environmentally friendly and have added value appeal to customers.
“Being given permission and space at White Rose, to sell the bird feeders and accompanying packets of seed, was the icing on the cake – they sold forty five of the sets at £5 apiece and are confident of selling all of the others that they have in stock and production.”
At Christmas, a previous group of iVenture students had similar success with the sale of USB Christmas trees, they had designed and produced.
