The NextGen CEO cohort of Spring 2025 kicked off March 27, 2025, featuring over 20 student participants learning how to start and run their own business.
NextGen CEO is a nine-week digital business education course that teaches kids the basics of starting their own business, courtesy of the Santa Maria Valley Chamber. The program is targeted to those at a sixth-grade learning level and covers five main categories, including business fundamentals, cost models, marketing and customer service, money management and future planning.
At the end of the program, students launched the businesses they have worked on during the course, and had the opportunity to sell their product to the public. We had many community members attend the business launch day at our Railroad Clubhouse in Santa Maria. Each business even got their own ribbon cutting!
The Spring 2025 cohort of the program is a partnership between Boys & Girls Clubs of the Mid Central Coast and the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce, and hosted at the Railroad Clubhouse and Evans Park Club sites in Santa Maria.
“In 2024, our Guadalupe Club Members had an amazing experience with the Next Gen CEO program and we are thrilled we can expand this to even more kids in Santa Maria. I was so excited to see how passionate our Club Members were about starting and marketing their own businesses. The skills they learned and the fun they had aligns perfectly with our goals in serving kids with high impact after school programming,” shared Anna Libbon, Chief Program Officer for Boys & Girls Clubs of Mid Central Coast.
“By providing these students with the skills and knowledge to start and run their own businesses, we’re not just shaping their future— we’re empowering them to shape the future of our community. This partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Mid Central Coast is a testament to the power of education, collaboration, and innovation. We look forward to seeing these young minds turn their ideas into reality,” said Chamber President & CEO Michael Boyer.
For more information on the NextGen CEO program, visit https://www.santamaria.com/education-workforce/nextgen-ceo/.
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