Most little girls want to learn how to ride horses. Lizzie Marie Likness was no different. She wanted horse riding lessons so bad, she made healthy baked goods and sold them at a farmer’s market in the hopes of earning enough for riding lessons. In doing so, she realized that her true passion was baking. She began launching a blog at age 8 and soon won the Del Monte grant and made appearances on the Rachel Ray Show, Fox News, CNN Money, and the Huffington Post. She also stars in “Healthy Cooking with Chef Lizzie” for WebMD’s kids’ portal FIT. Lizzie is currently soon finishing up her senior year of high school and continues to share recipes and other content on lizzemariecuisine.com

It is usually very difficult for parents of young boys to get dressed up for anything. Yet, for 11 year old Moziah Bridges, it was a passion. Collecting bow ties soon became his favorite hobby, but unfortunately he became disenchanted with the selection in most stores. After all, he was just 11 years old and it does make sense that his taste would be different than the people whom the ties where marketed towards. So then, his retired seamstress grandmother and him started to make their own unique bow ties. Now, just a few years later, Moziah is now CEO of his family run business “Mo’s Bows”.
In the beginning, Moziah and his grandmother just posted some bow ties on their web-sight. Soon, the bow ties started to attract a lot of attention! During the last three years, Moziah has made appearances on the Steve Harvey show, the Today Show, Oprah magazine, Good Morning America, and, shark tank. Just when it seemed like he couldn’t top his accomplishments, in 2015 Moziah served as a fashion correspondent for the NBA draft and was also invited to the inaugural white house demo day, where he was able to personally meet President Barack Obama and gift him with the special “Obama blue” mo’s bow.
It definitely seems like Moziah has had quite an adventure in such little time. His story is a reminder that you would be surprised when you combine creativity, perseverance, and family love.

If you thought you had high expectations for yourself, you should read about Erica Mackey and her life goal of bringing light to off-grid Africa within a decade. As the co-founder of Off Grid Electric, she shares this goal of providing power to 10 million households benefiting 50 million people. How do they purpose to do that? Well the The company came up with applying the mobile phone industry’s business model to the provision of electric power–customers pre-pay for electrical services (e.g, light, TV, mobile phone charging) weekly via mobile money. Not only does Off-Grid Electric provide lighting for Africans who are off the grid, but it is also clean solar energy. The company says, “Over the next decade the renewable energy sector will become one of the largest employers in Africa, and we are already leading the charge. We are creating over 40 new jobs per month through our in-house recruitment and training Off Grid Academy. Named one of the most exciting places to work in Africa, our company provides economic opportunity to an eager and talented local workforce, in a fast-paced startup environment”.
One of the few negative aspects of industrializing an area is definitely the impact it will have on the environment. For Off-Grid Electric, they were already one step ahead when they committed to going solar for the product energy source.

Jamie Byron and Gabe Blanchet were seniors at MIT when Jamie built an indoor aquaponic garden and they harvested fresh salad greens, culinary herbs, and other fruits and vegetables throughout the winter. It didn’t take long for them to realize that that if they made the aquaponic systems aesthetically pleasing for people’s homes and adding technology to make growing plants easier, they could make the world a healthier happier place while building a valuable business. They founded “Greenlabs” and by 2014 they had 3 employees and a little over $2 million in funding, mostly from venture capitalists and angel investors. In January 2015 they started selling their home ecosystems in Boston. Gabe and Jamie nonetheless will openly say that they support outdoor farming. Gabe said, ”
“As a company we support any kind of personal farming, so if someone lives in Southern California and has room outside, they have no reason to buy a Grove — they should be harnessing that natural resource.” He humbly said, “Grove is for people like him who live in Boston, where the growing season is about four months and few people have space for a garden.
So how does it work? Anyone can purchase a 6-foot tall, refrigerator size Grove in home ecosystem for around $4,500. When it is installed you can chose a unit to come in cherry, birch, mahogany, or bamboo. Blanchet recommends bamboo, because it’s the most sustainably harvested. Simply put, there is a fish tank at the bottom, and the ammonia in the fish waist is then filtered through the plants (while fertilizing them). The plants then, return the filtered clean water back to the fish. The ecosystem is lit with full-spectrum LEDs. The lights can be timed to brighten and shift spectrum throughout the day, starting red-hued in the morning, becoming bright and clear during the day, and then getting cooler and less intense in the evening. All of the lights and fans that come with the ecosystem can be controlled with an app on your smart phone! The app also includes a complete schedule reminding you when to tend to the ecosystem, even feeding the fish. “If you keep the system running optimally you can grow plants faster than you can outside,” says Blanchet.
It sounds to me like it may be a hefty investment at the time, but can be very rewarding to people that put health high on the priority list and can afford it. Also, the product is appealing to people that just enjoy gardening as a hobby and can usually only enjoy it a few months out of the year.

It is increasingly apparent that millennials, as group, definitely want to make the world a better place. Social entrepreneurship can be carried out in many different ways and in many different areas of life. For the young founders of “Commonstudio”, Daniel Philips and Kim Karlsrud, it is a calling to “reconcile nature and city”. As “environmental designers” they founded “Commonstudio”, a co-op dedicated to “collaborating creative practices exploring the complex ecologies of the urban landscape through the lens of design”. One of their projects “Greenaid” was inspired by the seedbomb product that has been around for decades. A seedbomb is a little ball of clay, compost, and seeds and can be tossed and planted virtually anywhere. Greenaid is Commonstudio’s initiative to make seedbombs more easily accessible to the general public. After a lot of research of trying to understand the barriers between the general public and guerrilla gardening, they realized that seedbombing had to be a casual and convenient experience. They came up with an idea to implement coin operated gumball machines as dispensers for seedbombs. Not only did this make seedbombs easier to access and more fun, it also created potential for the seedbombs to be an economically viable product.
In Las Angeles the “Throw and Grow” machines turned out to be a big success. The Greenaid page says, “In 2010, Commonstudio began the initiative by placing a series of prototype seedbomb vending machines in the Los Angeles area. For just fifty cents, the Greenaid machine offered instant access to the tools of the guerilla gardener in a variety of native wildflower mixes. The idea was infectious, and soon Greenaid blossomed into a fully operational social enterprise. ”
It is because Greenaid was so successful that they are now able to touch people’s lives in more ways than one. On their page they add, “In working in a partnership with Chrysalis, a local non-profit, Greenaid offered long term employment opportunities to formerly homeless and low income men and women from the Los Angeles area. In addition to paying a living wage for hand making and packaging the seedbombs, Greenaid employees were encouraged to operate their own vending machines to earn extra income every month. Commonstudio managed this non-profit partnership, and the expansion of Greenaid into a national brand through a range of new packaging, seedmixes, social media campaigns, and retail partnerships”.
Many social minded entrepreneurs can only dream of making such an impact on others like Daniel and Kim have. They have created jobs, helped the homeless, and impacted the environment. I would say that is pretty inspirational.

Many parents seem to go the extra mile for their kids to be successful. Some parents do this by saving up money for their child’s college tuition or even paying for their kid’s first car. However, Tom Morse had a different idea of what he could do to help his daughter, Alina age 9, to succeed in life. Tom, a professional business consultant, decided to help his daughter start a company. Growing up in a health conscious family, Alina got inspired to create, not only a sugar free lollipop, but a lollipop that goes above and beyond. “Zollipops” are a sugar-free lollipop containing sweeteners; erythritol, xylitol and stevia. She said,” It helps freshen breath and balances the mouth’s pH, a measure of how acidic it is after eating”.
Alina’s zollipops are already being sold on Amazon and officemax.com. You may be able to find zollipops in some Whole Foods stores as well. She has big dreams for her product saying, she “hopes Zollipops will be included in all grocery stores, fast food meals for children or Lunchables, instead of treats like cookies or brownies. She also has plans to expand the product line to appeal more toward adults”.
I think her goals are very realistic considering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, “tooth decay and cavities remain the most common chronic disease among children. It’s four times as frequent as asthma among adolescents 14-17. It’s also a problem for adults.: Nine out of 10 people over age 20 have some tooth decay”. Alina’s product is definitely a long anticipated solution to a problem that is effecting everybody in our society.
Tom and Alina claimed that everyone in the family helped, “Even Alina’s 5-year-old sister Lola who accidentally gave them the name when she mixed up the word “lollipop ” “. Perhaps one of the most important things Alina’s parents Tom and Suzanne do for their kids is that they are trying to teach them to never stop asking questions. Zollipops all started because Alina kept on asking her dad why no one makes a lollipop that is good for you. Now, so many people are going to benefit because of a child’s curiosity, and that is a beautiful thing.

Cameron Johnson definitely showed entrepreneurial qualities since a young age. At age five he started selling vegetables from his family’s garden to neighbors. When he was nine years old, in 1994 he started his first official business: Cheers and Tears, a greeting card company. With Cheers and Tears, by the time he was twelve, he was making 50,000 a year! The same year, Cameron also purchased 30 Ty beanie babies and made a profit of ten times what be bought them for by selling them on eBay.
For his next venture, Johnson used $50,000 of his own money to kickstart My EZ Mail, a confidential email forwarding service. In a few months, MY EZ Mail was making Johnson $3000 in advertising revenue.
Johnson’s next project was called Surfingprizes.com, an advertisement service that put scrolling advertising on top of web browsers. Users of Surfingprizes.com received 20 cents per-hour to have the ads displayed. Referral marketing was used to spread the word; users would get 10% of the revenue generated by each customer they referred to use the service.
Cameron Johnson started all of the companies named above before he was fifteen and was a millionaire before high school! As a twenty-eight year old, Johnson is still up to the same entrepreneurial activity and it doesn’t look like he is going to stop anytime soon. After reading about his story I am sure glad that I save my beanie babies from my childhood!

Kristin Keen had a remarkable vision to help victimized women affected by the sex trade by starting the business: “Rethreaded”. By partnering with social services and mental health providers, Rethreaded not only employees women, but gives them therapeutic jobs that help rehabilitate them.
It all starts with donated t-shirts that go to the Rethreaded warehouse. Beautiful products are then created from the t-shirts by employees; women suffering addiction, coming from a life of prostitution, or victimized from human trafficking. Kristin Keen says, ” Many of these women leave prison with felony records which create significant challenges to employment. Rethreaded is a safe place where women are paid a living wage to become artisan seamstresses and “upcycle” donated t-shirts into beautiful creations for sale,” says Kristin Keen.
The Rethreaded warehouse is located in Jacksonville Florida, yet it has managed to employ over 2,000 women world wide, and keep them out of the sex trade.
Rethreaded is a faith based organization with a mission that is dedicated to six key values: love, acceptance, healing, relationship, community, and excellence.
One aspect that I found really intriguing is the “healing” aspect of Rethreaded. They take their slogan “sowing a new story”, and really base the entire company around it for the women employed. It is no happy accident that the women get to be creative at work, on the Rethreaded websight it says that, “as an organization, we will facilitate healing through our work environment, relationships, and community”. The video under the About Us tab also shares that the work serves as a creative outlet that helps calm the employees. Other than being a creative outlet, during their four month training program, the employees learn important life skills, to help them become self-reliant.
At Rethreaded, the employees get to get paid, while being rehabilitated in a faith based caring environment.