Winning ideas

Jennifer Caren says her grandmother’s bad hip inspired her to come up with a contest-winning business plan focused on running errands for seniors.

Thunder Bay Ventures announced the winner of the Enter the Den contest at Westgate High School Wednesday. The contest encouraged high school students to flex their entrepreneurial muscles. Caren, 17, took first place for her idea of an errand service and won $1,500. Kevin Fish, Aaron Bellinger and Megan Fero took second place with $1,000 and Gerrit Wesselink took third with $750.

Jennifer, a student at Westgate high school, said her grandmother needed assistance because of a bad hip but there weren’t any available.

"I know my grandmother would have been proud that I did this," Jennifer said. "This kind of service is really needed. Baby boomers are getting older and everyone is getting busier."

Dubbed CARE’N Errand Services, the business plan offers a variety of services not currently available.

"Anything you want we will do it for you," she said.

Despite winning the constant, Jennifer said her real passion is in law and would save up the money for university or college.

Jennifer went up against five other finalists before taking first prize. More than 90 high school students submitted their business plans and proposals. A final judging panel marked students on the proposed business plans, their confidence during their presentations and entrepreneurship.

Royden Potvin, manager of Thunder Bay Ventures, said he wanted youth to become interested in entrepreneurship, take some of their ideas, and apply them to Thunder Bay.

"One of our long-term goals with this contest is to encourage entrepreneurship in our population," Potvin said.

"We’ve seen many good business plans; they need some work to make to make them profitable but we think there are lots of good ideas out there."

Following the recession, Potvin said now is the time to invest in local businesses and capitalize on the opportunity to create income and new businesses.