Tasvee Jain has an entrepreneurial spirit and a sustainable product to sell — all before graduating high school.
The Grade 12 student at Morden Collegiate Institute is the president of Luxe Prep, a student-led business that has tapped a local cabinet company to turn its offcuts into kitchen staples.
She and her fellow students built the business from the ground up through the Junior Achievement Manitoba Company Program, which brings its annual Student Trade Fair to St. Vital Shopping Centre today in Winnipeg.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
Morden Collegiate Institute student Tasvee Jain shows off Luxe Prep cutting boards alongside JA Manitoba program manager Jeanette Bergmann at St. Vital Shopping Centre.
The after-school program, which teaches financial literacy education to youth, asks students to build a business from a concept, to selling shares to gather capital, to making and marketing their product. Pitching their product is also key: Tasvee’s team will be offering free recipes at their booth.
“We went through this whole process of (asking), what is something we think is a problem in our daily life?” said Tasvee, 17. “And a lot of us were thinking about plastic cutting boards, because most of our parents had used them at one point or were still using them, and microplastics are a big issue.”
Jeanette Bergmann, JA Manitoba Company Program manager, visits schools across the province in the fall yearly to promote the after-school program.
While JA Manitoba has existed since 1961, interest continues to grow — this year, 13 teams and 300 students signed up, compared to just three teams taking on the challenge four years ago.
Bergmann said the program is still looking for adults working in the business sector to volunteer as mentors. For her, seeing young people gain confidence in themselves through the process — both through success and learning from mistakes — has been meaningful.
“The confidence is phenomenal, in the kids, how much there’s a change in them, and they feel more secure,” she said.
Other student-built businesses coming to the trade fair include Beak-a-Boo from Windsor Park Collegiate, which sells bird watching kits, and St. John’s-Ravenscourt School’s Rootd, a hydroponics operation.
The money they make goes to covering expenses, paying shareholders and donating a percentage to a charity of their choice, often related to the business.
The program also partners with SAFE Work Manitoba, which assesses the students’ safety plans, and the Stu Clark Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Manitoba, which provides feedback for their business plans.
Even former participants have come back to support students.
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“They’re gaining work skills, real life experience,” Bergmann said. “I’ve had so many students come back to me… saying, ‘I want to come back as a customer. I want to see what it’s like on the other side.’”
This is Tasvee’s third year in the program, and she said she’s proud to have watched newer students get involved and gain confidence. While opening a business isn’t in her immediate future, Tasvee said, she’ll be able to take what she learned here wherever she goes next.
“This is a skill you can apply everywhere, any place you want to go.”
The trade fair will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at St. Vital Shopping Centre’s centre court today.
malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca
Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.
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