The Brees Dream Foundation and Junior Achievement of North Louisiana Held the Regional Trust Your Crazy Ideas Challenge on March 10, 2021 via ZOOM!
Shreveport, LA- March 12, 2021 – The Brees Dream Foundation and Junior Achievement of North Louisiana (JA) are thrilled to announce the results of our Virtual Trust Your Crazy Ideas Challenge Competition of 2021. 6 local teams from Caddo Magnet High School, Captain Shreve, and C.E. Bryd have completed the Idea Accelerator Workshops and brought their product from an idea to a potentially viable product. Throughout the Spring, Semi-Finalist teams attend the Idea Accelerator workshop series. At these workshops, students hear from local entrepreneurs about marketing, sales, funding, and more. Teams work with mentors from different industries to develop a pitch, a pitch deck, and a commercial for their Crazy Idea. The Idea Accelerator workshops provide a platform to not only inspire students to anticipate and solve problems, but also develop impactful and real-world entrepreneurial, management, public speaking, and networking skills that they’ll need throughout their careers.
The JA of North Louisiana Winners are:
1st Place- Makenzie Rogers, Senior-Caddo Magnet High School. Clean Crate, creates cosmetic beauty boxes formulated for a consumer's specific skincare needs. She wins $5,000 in continuing education scholarship funds and goes on to represent our area in the state competition on March 26th. In addition, Caddo Magnet High School wins $2,500!
2nd Place-Sydney Moss, Junior-C.E. Byrd High School. Sydney created Integrity Scoring, a product idea that would solve the issue of keeping score while playing golf! Sydney was awarded $2,500 in continuing education scholarship funds.
3rd Place-Kathryn Anderson, Senior-Caddo Magnet High School. Azure Atlas is a business model that addresses the different learning styles of students and their tutoring support needs. She is the winner of $2,500 in continuing education scholarship funds.
The Trust Your Crazy Ideas Challenge is a partnership between Junior Achievement of North Louisiana and the Brees Dream Foundation. It is an entrepreneurial competition for high school students that have completed the JA It’s My Business! program. Students are asked to come up with a crazy idea for a business and the Challenge gives them the skills to take it to the next level- for a chance at $10,000! This Class is comprised of student entrepreneur teams from three Caddo Parish high schools. The winner will compete virtually against Trust Your Crazy Ideas Challenge winners from Baton Rouge, Lafayette and New Orleans during New Orleans Entrepreneurs Week 2021.
For the sixth consecutive year, The Brees Dream Foundation and JA have partnered to produce the Trust Your Crazy Ideas Challenge. This celebrated program and competition is designed to develop entrepreneurial spirit and skills among high school students. Since 2013, the Trust Your Crazy Ideas Challenge has awarded over $250,000 in scholarships to students and schools across Louisiana
“Junior Achievement has always understood the importance of introducing young people to entrepreneurial thinking,” said Larry Washington, president of JA, Greater New Orleans. “The Trust Your Crazy Ideas Challenge program helps ignite the passion for entrepreneurship in students that they may have never knew existed. I’m excited to see more and more of our area young people engage with this program.” Nita Cook, president of JA of North Louisiana.
“Being an entrepreneur is about believing in yourself, and being passionate about your dreams” said Drew Brees, co-founder of The Brees Dream Foundation. “And I’m passionate about young people having access to the tools they need to make their dreams come true. Not everyone can play in the NFL, but anyone with smarts, drive and focus can build a business. I’m proud to partner with JA to help inspire kids to get in the driver’s seat of their futures.”
About Junior Achievement of North LA: JA delivers a variety of educational programs in finance and economics presented to students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. During the 2018-19 school year, JA with its many volunteers, provided programming to 13,157 students from Caddo and Bossier parishes. For more information on JA, visit www.janla.org, call 318-588-2911 or connect with JA on Facebook and Twitter (@JANorthLA).
About the Brees Dream Foundation: The Brees Dream Foundation was founded in 2003 with a mission to advance research in the fight against cancer and provide care, education and opportunities for children and families in need. Brittany and Drew Brees and the Brees Dream Foundation have collectively contributed more than $25,000,000 to charitable causes and academic institutions globally. For more information, visit: http://www.drewbrees.com.
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