Aaaaah summer. The sun, the water, late nights and for me, the laughter of children! This past summer I ran a dance camp in Wellesley, Ontario called Barefoot Dance Camp. Each week of camp had a different themes, like Princess Week, Cowgirl Week, and Fun in the Sun (can you tell this was an all girls camp?). The girls were ages 5-10. They came to camp for a half day, and during this time they had a dance class, did a craft, and played outside. At the end of every week, the girls put on a dance show for their parents. It was such a rewarding experiance! I had so much fun every day coming up with new games, teaching the kids new dance steps and playing with the girls. I loved it so much and I learned a lot about running a business and teaching dance.
I decided to run a camp duing the summer mainly because I had no other job opportunities, but also because opening a dance studio is one of my goals. I wanted to see if I could run a dance camp when I didn't have the pressures of paying rent, buying food and supporting myself. In order to start the business, I applied for a government grant through a program called Summer Company. How it works is you have to create a business plan, go through an interview process and then, if you are accepted, you are required to complete a certain amount of business training and mentoring sessions. Student entrepreneurs are given $1500 at the beginning of the summer as a start up grant. If you are sucessful (they define successful as making atleast one sale, doing atleast 35 hours of work a week and completing all of the training) the government gives you another $1500 at the end of the summer as reward for all of your hard work.
After finishing the summer, I have decided to let my business grow! I plan to do day long programs over Christmas Break, and I am defintely going to offer more summer camp programs next summer!
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