Case Study: Pecans!
Teaching Teenagers How to Build a Business with a Plentiful Local Resource
Greensboro, Alabama is a town of 2,700 people and has a poverty rate of nearly 30 percent. As part of YouthBuild Greensboro, graphic designers Robin Moody and Amanda Buck spent six months working with fifteen local students to create a small business using one of Alabama’s most abundant resources: pecans. They helped them to develop a business plan, while teaching them how to brand, market, and sell their pecan products: pecan brittle and pecan butter.
Design Challenge
Teaching students how to develop a business plan for their pecan products, and how to brand, market, and sell them.
Engagement Strategy
Locating local, free resources to make a product that can be marketed and sold. Empowering students with skills that can help them gain control of their own career and future.
Design Strategy
Involving the students in every part of the design process, from brainstorming ideas to screenprinting labels.
Outcomes
Students learned how to start a business and how to manage it day-to-day. The pecan products are currently available for purchase online and in select stores in Alabama.
Lessons Learned
Buck and Mooty learned the importance of letting go of their personal aesthetics to make something that best serves the community.