A Franchising Program for the Schools A Franchising Program for the Schools Keepers Holiday Gift Shops are temporary stores which are open only to children ages 12 and under in the Christmas Holiday Season. During the 1995 holiday season Keeper's Shops were organized in 12 Wisconsin cities, including inner city Milwaukee.
Students learn along the way.
The shops are set up and run entirely by students in cooperation with local businesses and senior citizen volunteers. In making a success of the experience, the young entrepreneurs often find math, English, writing, public speaking, business and real world survival skills much more relevant. This approach to teaching entrepreneurship may appear to be backwards, since students begin by implementing a shop right away. However, teachers gain a great deal of confidence from the project and are anxious to challenge students to begin original businesses of their own during the second semester of the school year. Wisconsin-based Designer Victoria Van Asten organized this program eight years ago as a way to involve teachers and students in entrepreneurship education.