“What really inspired me to do this event was to bring my school’s art community closer together. There are some people who love art, but our school might not provide the specific type or medium that they love to do. I wanted to give people a chance to show what they love to do, inside and outside of class. We also don’t have an art show for our high school, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to encourage people to show others what they love to do!”

via The New York Times

Christina and Luisa will join us for dinner on Thursday night to answer your questions and inspire you at our Round Table dinner discussion. We are so excited to have these entrepreneurial powerhouses with us for Fashion & Finance 2012.

via Guy French Website

In the interview, Melinda explained their success in language that could be used to describe any entrepreneur’s vision:

This effort has taken hundreds and hundreds of volunteer time and you have to have a really dedicated group of people who are willing to hang in their for the long haul … it’s not a quick fix.

The Community Store is just one of the sites campers will visit at our June 24-30 camp you can find out more information about this camper or our Wilbraham camp at Wilbraham & Monson Academy in Wilbraham, MA, on our camp website.

With a goal of “changing the world for the better” by building a new food system, Real Pickles founder Dan Rosenberg launched Real Pickles in 2001. He’ll tell the story of how the company grew from producing 1,000 pounds of pickles to producing more than 100,000 in eight years. As campers tour the facility, Dan will talk about the challenges of growing a business while staying true to his founding principles.

If you want to know more and get a sense of what Real Pickles is like, we suggest checking out their blog or read a bit of their story.

via Better Living Through Design

via Better Living Through Design

via Better Living Through Design

Anyone thinking about business in the fashion industry will want to hear Ranjana’s story.  If you’re interested, be sure to check out the Fashion & Finance website or contact us. Didn’t get enough of their studio? You can find even more photos of their sumptuous, beautiful, and just cool loft here and here.

Savage Arms has a rich and colorful history, including producing Tommy Guns in World War II and the first motorized lawnmower. Teens at Camp Start-Up will have the chance to watch as a piece of steel is transformed into a gun and to talk with Al Kasper, the number two person at the company, about how Savage Arms survived bankruptcy to become the thriving, privately-owned operation it is today.

This year at our Wilbraham location (July 27-August 5) we’ll be returning to PV Squared, a worker-owned business that provides renewable energy system installations at homes, businesses, municipalities, and institutions. We’ll be touring their facility and meeting with one of the worker-owner-founders, Kim Pinkham.

When we went there last year, we talked about alternative energy and what it means to be worker owned. It was an amazing glimpse into the alternative energy future.

You can find more photos and photos from our other field trips on our Facebook page.

Want to register? Visit our official Camp Start-Up page. Want to get the most recent updates? Follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

“Camp Start-Up changed my life. It inspired me to become the successful person that I am today. Now, I want to give back.”

This was what Alexis Woodford-Demko wrote when she emailed me last fall. She had been a Camp Start-Up camper back in 1998. Now, she wanted to see if she could be one of the mentors for Camp Start-Up in 2012.

I’m proud to say she will be joining us for our session in the Adirondack Mountains (June 24-30) to share the real life “David and Goliath” tale of how she founded her San Diego-based waste disposal company, Lights Out Disposal.

This is what Camp Start-Up is all about—opening campers’ eyes to greater possibilities by introducing them to mentors like Alexis. It’s why I love it.

Over the next couple of weeks, you can expect to find more updates about the other people we’ll be meeting and the sites we’ll be visiting here on the blog. In the meantime, for additional information, visit our website or download our brochure. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Registration for Fashion & Finance 2012 is now open.

This is a very intimate program, kept small to allow access to some very special venues and people. Last year, for example, Stuart Weitzman happened to be in the studio when we stopped by to learn about their marketing strategy. At Uniqlo we met with the new CEO to hear about the vision for that company’s worldwide growth!

If this is the first you’ve heard of Fashion & Finance, let me explain: Fashion and Finance is our annual dual-generation adventure. We meet industry stars, from established names like Ranjana Khan to upstarts like Christina French Houghton and Louisa Roeder of Guy French and we go behind the scenes to explore business and finance in their dazzling settings. Check on the video report Reuters did on last year’s event.

Fashion & Finance runs June 21 through 23 in New York. In the meantime, look here for more more updates about the sites we’ll be visiting and mentors we’ll be meeting over the next coming weeks. If you want to know more you can register on our event website.

To help promote Camp Start-Up 2012 we’re announcing a deal designed to exercise your entrepreneurial muscle. For each camper you refer to us who signs up, we’ll send you $100. How does it work? Read up below and leave any questions as comments.

What do I have to do?
Tell your friends, cousins, siblings, classmates about Camp Start-Up and make sure they know to use your name when they sign up. That’s it.

What do I need to tell them?
First, tell them what you loved about camp—all of the great people and places you saw and how much you learned. Then, tell them about the basics. Camp Start-Up is in two locations this year: Saranac Lake, NY, and Wilbraham, MA. The first runs from June 24-30 and will focus on building sustainable local businesses. The second runs July 27-August 5 and includes both entrepreneurship and investing.

How should I do that?
Call, email, text, or send them a message on Facebook. You can share our website or our Facebook page. You could also print or email this brochure, which includes basic info as well as bit about the field trips we’ll be taking, the mentors we’ll be meeting, and what we’ll be doing day to day.

How will I get paid?
To get paid, the campers you refer to us actually have to sign up. When they pay, we’ll ask them if anyone referred them. If that’s you, we’ll send you a check within a couple of weeks.

Is there a limit on how many people I can refer?
Sort of. Our only limit is availability of spaces. We have as many as 50 between the two locations, so there’s plenty of opportunity.

Get out there! Put that entrepreneurial muscle to work while sharing something wonderful with your friends and family.