Facing bankruptcy after a failed entrepreneurial endeavor several years ago, Tory D. Coats paused to do some necessary soul-searching. That’s when he discovered his desire to positively impact youth. Until then, Coats had hired teens to distribute flyers and promote his business. But, seeing a lack of financial literacy education for disadvantaged youth, he aimed to implement experiential learning programs to better equip them. In 2011, Coats created Teen Enterprise, which works to empower and train underrepresented entrepreneurs, ages 13-19, with much-needed business skills.
“We have bright, talented youth in our communities and recreation centers,” Coats said. “Given the opportunity, they can reach heights unknown by utilizing their gifts and understanding their value and potential impact.”
Thanks to Coats and his team, these opportunities are now available. Each week, business coaches with Teen Enterprise meet with the youth to cultivate an enterprise mindset. Holding meetings in several different facilities, including Zelma Watson George Recreation Center on the city’s east side, Teen Enterprise program members hear from speakers who look, walk, and talk just like them. These kids know they can overcome the lofty statistics stacked against them because, at Teen Enterprise, they witness up close and personally others who have.
“We’ve had Chad Porter, owner of the WearPack (an innovative take on backpacks), lead a design thinking course for the kids,” said Candice Williams, Teen Enterprise business coach and community relationship manager. “They were able to hear Chad’s story of triumph, receive his donated products, design their own WearPack, and even witness his unfolding success.”
Teen Enterprise participants sporting their designed Wearpack gear! (Photo by Teen Enterprise)
Experiencing the unfolding of greatness is essential for those bombarded daily with a lack of resources and, ultimately, a lack of hope. With illiteracy rates looming at 66% in the city, crime rates in urban areas nearly double that of suburban areas, and Black children being three times as likely to be raised in a single-parent household than white children, the goal-line to success is further ahead for urban youth than their counterparts. They need all the motivation they can get to reach it. Teen Enterprise aims to provide that motivation.
Business coaches such as Williams and Breon Ramsey offer curriculums with stimulating topics that provide foundational principles of financial literacy in relatable ways. The kids take field trips that help them learn. They’re groomed for pitch competitions, and many become award recipients. They participate in pop-up marketing events that take place in storefronts Teen Enterprise repurposes from vacant buildings. Through these pop-ups, areas such as Collinwood, Slavic Village, and Glenville become breeding grounds for future minority businesses.
But even more so, Teen Enterprise creates a healthy outlet for young people in city neighborhoods, where innate hustle loiters on every street corner. So often, kids with backgrounds like Ramsey mow lawns or shovel snow to make additional income. Or maybe, they get involved in something worse, like criminal activity or substance abuse.
“I was customizing sneakers and t-shirts and selling them at school,” Ramsey said about his teen years. “Then, when Tory came into my life, he showed me the paperwork needed to file and the business infrastructure I needed to create to make my hustle an actual enterprise. This ultimately enabled me to host a sneaker convention.”
Ramsey, stepson to Coats, has significantly benefited as a mentee of this nonprofit guru and now mentors those coming behind him. It is a classic picture of legacy – the passing of the baton from one generation to the next. This is exactly the sort of legacy started by Zelma Watson George, the namesake for the location Teen Enterprises uses to train up Cleveland’s future leaders.
Passing the baton
The Zelma Watson George Recreation Center is fittingly located off Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. and houses an abundance of individuals seeking to change young lives.
Zelma Watson George, artist, women’s rights advocate, and Black equality champion, made her mark not only on the city of Cleveland but on the world. An advisor to President Dwight Eisenhower’s administration and an alternate for the United Nations in the 1960s, George inhabited spaces of power rare for Black women of her time.
The Black leader’s journey flourished across higher educational platforms, as she obtained degrees and honorary degrees, and thrived in the Black sisterhood of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
A transplant to Cleveland, her marriage to Clayborne George proved to be yet another vehicle for investing her wealth of talent and intellect into her community. Her work in philanthropy touched many, coinciding with a collection of awards, in addition to her endeavor of molding minds at Cleveland’s own Cuyahoga Community College.
Today, George’s legacy is still impacting the youth through TE’s programs. One such young person is Stephanie Kent, a promising participant in Teen Enterprise. Awarded funding from pitch competitions for her jewelry business, the 14-year-old owner of “Stephanie’s Finest Costume Jewelry” shares, “I’ve been able to use my reward money to cover table fees at pop-ups, update my display, buy more jewelry, and pay for transportation to vendor events.” (Stephanie Kent’s jewelry can be obtained through her Instagram page: @stephaniefinestcostumejewelry.)
Kent’s success story is a keen example of the impact Teen Enterprise is making, but for other students success looks different. For them, the program is a safe haven from verbal, sexual, and physical abuse at home. Many of the participants have experienced trauma and poverty. The glass doors and metal detectors they walk through to attend each meeting shield them from day-to-day problems.
For that reason, Teen Enterprise provides food for all participants, ensuring the kids will receive at least one meal that day. These dire circumstances cause the coaches to wear a multitude of hats. They are not just teachers, they are mental and emotional health counselors. They are advocates. They are friends.
After one of the meetings, 19-year-old Adria Ingram shared the numerous obstacles that plagued her first week of school at Kent State University. A first generation college student, Ingram doesn’t have her peers’ resources. Her commute to the Twinsburg campus classes include tackling confusing bus systems in the dead of winter and trudging through mountainous piles of snow in ice cold temperatures. “I didn’t even have gloves, but I had to get to class,” she said. Lucky for Ingram, her coaches can identify with her college experience. She may not have someone at home who can advise her, but she does at Teen Enterprise.
Teen Enterprise’s funding partners include the City of Cleveland and The President’s Council, a nonprofit that supports Black business owners. Teen Enterprise’s attendance decreased from 40 to 24 in the fall of 2023, a result of the program being removed from two locations. “It just got too dangerous,” Ramsey said of the situation. He goes on to explain that outside community violence made its way inside the facilities that the programs were held in. With fewer students, the staff was also cut from six to three.
But even with its downsizing, Teen Enterprise wants to have a global reach. Now, their focus has narrowed to grooming a core group of innovators who’ve curated businesses like lawn mowing and pillow decor services. Future goals include spearheading programs inducing cross-cultural connections for Cleveland teens. Inspired by his trip to Honduras in 2019, where he trained underrepresented populations, Coats is looking to implement programs that will buoy the seas of an international marketplace. This desire to broaden the worldview of inner city children is dire, as most kids from urban households never step outside of their small communities. “Through the resources provided to Teen Enterprise and other similar organizations, who knows the heights our youth can reach?” Coats said.
Teen Enterprise is looking for more business coaches and volunteers from the community to join their efforts.Too often, those who climb the ladders of achievement forget to look back and aid those dangling on lower rungs. Ramsey said that the city needs more community outreach and volunteers to support the next generation. “We lack community outreach,” Ramsey said. “People can’t seem to find the time to give back.”
Volunteering for TE will aid in satisfying this great need for community outreach by assisting with the development of young minds. Though the need for helpers is great, the impact of those who do give back is clearly shown as demonstrated by the mentorship of Coats which birthed Ramsey’s entrepreneurial successes.
Visit Teen Enterprise’s website to learn more about its programs and volunteer opportunities, or email executive director Tory Coats at tcoats@teenenterprise.org.
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