The FIRE Within: Student Entrepreneurs Preventing Youth Suicide (more info)
Adolph Coors Foundation Sparks a "FIRE"
Pete Coors discusses the generous gift from the Adolph Coors Foundation to The Carson J Spencer Foundation to support The FIRE Within program which takes students through a yearlong course in social entrepreneurship, mental health advocacy and leadership training. The goal of both The Carson J Spencer Foundation and The Adolph Coors Foundation is to promote student social entrepreneurship and to enable students to run enterprises that raise revenue and awareness for suicide prevention.
The FIRE Within: Youth Entrepreneurs Preventing Suicide: Partnering with Junior Achievement, Rocky Mountain, Inc. and the Second Wind Fund, we aim to ignite a passion for an entrepreneurial mindset and care for the common good in youth; to build business skills and social networks among our next generation of leaders; and to provide opportunities for business management. Through the FIRE Within, a hands-on, year-long curriculum, engages high school students in entrepreneurship by developing skills including business planning, research, marketing, innovation, leadership, finance and community service. Students apply these business skills to develop and implement a suicide prevention plan within their own community. Students learn facts about teen suicide, research and identify the root cause of suicide thoughts among their peers, explore possible prevention and intervention strategies, and as a team develop and execute a business plan to prevent suicide within their own community. In a business plan competition, student groups develop sustainable businesses that raise revenue and awareness for suicide prevention and compete for varying levels of seed money to implement their plans.
Letters of Support for The FIRE Within
What success looks like:
- Partnership from all communities: Junior Achievement - Rocky Mountain, Inc. provides access to classrooms and the Be Entrepreneurial! curriculum. The Second Wind Fund, Inc. provides free access to quality mental health services for at-risk and uninsured youth. Using our The FIRE Within: Saving Lives through Business curriculum, we integrate these programs to create and support young social entrepreneurs. Teachers and principals actively engage with the classrooms to support these burgeoning social enterprises.
- Enterprises developed by young leaders will exponentially impact more young people. A classroom of 20 will impact over 2,000 other students and community members. This high-impact and transformational approach means that for every one student, another 100 individuals are affected through innovative marketing, social messaging and product purchasing.
- Long before they graduate, youth gain the confidence and passion that will help them become powerful and influential adults. They take ownership of their experiences and futures, and spread the FIRE through their communities.
After conducting a school-wide needs assessment, students at Rangeview High School determined that bullying was the root cause to suicidal ideation at their school. In response to this, they developed a social enterprise selling stylish wristbands that say "I Choose to Live, I Choose to Love." Hidden on the inside of the wristband is the suicide hotline number. In the first two days, they sold out of their first order of 300 wristbands. At their administration's request, they also developed an anti-bullying and suicide prevention curriculum that they deliver to underclassmen. All for an initial micro-grant of $250.
