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New Middle School Club Explores Possibilities

5/18/2018

Over the spring semester, the newly formed ChangeMakers Club, spearheaded by Middle School English teacher Meg Dalrymple, worked collaboratively to uncover and understand challenges on the Collegiate campus and in the Richmond community with the intent of designing solutions.

Using a variety of brainstorming and creative exercises, this group of 7th and 8th Grade students began to identify common passions and skills they could collectively leverage to be a part of the change they want to see happen around them.

The net result of their work is a question they intend to begin investigating at the start of the fall semester: “How might we help children in long-term hospital care be as comfortable as possible and their surroundings be as cheerful and fun as possible?”

This group of social entrepreneurs is laying the foundation for a future student-led business that will solve problems and contribute to the community at large. Students are trusted to guide this teacher-facilitated, ongoing process, ultimately creating a self-sustaining business with a positive impact.

Social entrepreneurship at Collegiate means combining business knowledge and skills with a passionate commitment to making a sustainable social impact. The Skoll Foundation, an organization that drives large-scale change by investing in social entrepreneurs and the innovators who help them solve the world’s most pressing problems, describes social entrepreneurs as “society’s change agents, creators of innovations that disrupt the status quo and transform our world for the better.”

To learn more or to contribute to the ongoing work of the ChangeMakers Club, please contact Trina Clemans, Collegiate’s Director of Economic Literacy and Entrepreneurship, at trina_clemans@collegiate-va.org.

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