M3 girls designs was created by the three Bradshaw women Maddie, Magrot , and their mom. Maddie ran into the the problem when entering the 5th grade of not being able to find any cute locker magnets. Maddie and her mom and sister started brainstorming and came up with “Snap Caps” which are bottle caps that are magnetic and have cute designs on them. 

Maddie brainstormed and also made the “Snap Caps” into necklaces! So these fashionable bottle caps can be worn around by all the time. Maddie’s product has become famous and featured on the Disney Channel show Shark Tank. Maddie has also published a book on how other young entrepreneurs can start a business like she did.

Maddie and her family are a great example of young entrepreneurs. She saw a need as simple as finding creative locker magnets and transforming them into a creative product. M3 won the Creative Child Award in 2009 and it will be great to see what M3 does in the future.

http://www.m3girldesigns.com/

Shining a Light

I cannot believe I had never thought of this non profit before! Jenny VanderGalien is from my River Terrace Church in East Lansing, Michigan (My home church!!) and has started a non profit organization in Arusha Tanzania. I have personally talked to Jane about her past and she would be the LAST person you would ever have expected to pack up everything and move to Tanzania.

Jenny was involved in drugs and drinking, but had a great job that payed well! Jenny had not accepted Christ into her life and while at a low point realized something was missing. She talked with missionaries at my church and decided to go on a mission trip to Tanzania. While she was there she saw how poorly all the women were treated and how lots of them had no way to make a living in a male dominated culture.  Most of them had to send their children to orphanages because they did not have enough money, as single mothers, to care for them. Jenny prayed a lot about it and tried to use her strengths to find a solution to this problem.

“Changing one sole at a time”

Jenny saw these beautiful hand made sandals being sold by a man and came up with an idea. She could teach all these women to make these sandals! Jenny’s idea came to life and she came up with the name for her organization from a passage in Isaiah.

Today Jenny has a website and she sells sandals all over the world! I actually have two pairs of them and they are the best sandals I own! It’s so cool that I have these really cute shoes and I actually know where all the money is going. Jenny has really helped these women in Arusha. She used her strengths in fashion and sales to start this non-profit and help people who cannot help themselves.

I encourage all of you to go visit her website! The shoes are so cute and they would make great Christmas presents for anyone! My grandma even has a pair and she loves them!

http://www.shiningalight.org/

“HeyJosh.com only the beginning”

HeyJosh.com is the name of the website Josh Shipp started in  2006 to  provide advice and motivational speaking for teens.    Josh started his business  from Grand Rapids, Michigan and    quickly his website picked up and gained a  following. Josh  was an orphan and through this experience he gained lots of    knowledge and was able to use this to experience to provide a  message to  others. Josh was 28 when he started his business  and within the first year he  became very successful.

Josh has become so popular MTV has asked him to start a TV  show, he has been on many many talk shows like Good Morning America, and he has talked at many colleges and univesities. Josh was also asked to start a column in COSMOgirl and has wrote two books called “Teens Guide to World Domination” and “Jump Ship: Turn your passion into a Profession”.

Josh has made such an impact on so many teens lives! It’s amazing to see how he took the pain in his life and used that to try to help others ease the pain in theirs. Josh has done a great job in seeing a problem in society and making it solution by offering practical advice that many people need and want.

For more information:

http://joshshipp.com/about/

A Young entrepreneurs sweet idea

The 15-year old Nicky Bronner has come up with a new healthier solution to candy bars. The son of the millionaire Michael Bronner, was lucky enough to be well connected to make his idea become a reality. Nicky was posed with the problem of wanting to eat candy bars, but realizing the unhealthy side effects that come along with it. He wanted to make a product that still tasted as wonderful, but was not as harmful to the body.

Here are the facts of the some of the candy from Unreal Candy.

His father, Mr. Bronner, is co-founder of the company and helped Nicky make all the      right connections to start his business. Nicky was able to collaborate with Adam          Melonas, a progressive- chef from Spain, and together they made Nicky’s healthy    candy become a reality. The idea took two years to perfect because of all the natural  substitutions that had to be made, but the end result was what Nicky had imagined.

Nicky’s business is called Unreal brands and is being endorsed by Tom Brady, the  founder of twitter, and has been released in stores like Target and Kroger.  The  business is a for-profit company, but it has a social aspect to it because it is trying to  address the problem of diabetes and obesity that are rampant in society.

Nicky has done a great job of seeing a problem in society and coming up with a solution. It helps that he has connections in place from is father, but Nicky has done a great job of being innovative and making his idea a reality.

Nicky’s product is also inspiring because of the social implications it has. Obesity is a common problem today and having products like this on the market can help combat the junk food obsession.  It inspires me to try to make my for-product profit have some social implications. Nicky is a great example of a young entrepreneur and it will be exciting to see how his Unreal brand does.

For more information go to:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404577464700830700754.html

Written by: Ashley Henderson