 So hello everybody, my name is Don Gooding or as I joke to people tonight I am Mr. Kate Gooding. Both Kate and I work with entrepreneurs. Kate, as you know, has been working with the younger entrepreneurs and I run the main center for entrepreneurial development and some of the entrepreneurs that I've been helping have actually, they're here tonight. So it's a pleasure to have all of you together as a community to celebrate the great accomplishments of all of these kids. So let's just start off with the first round of applause for all of these kids who have done an amazing job. So for those of you who don't know, the Build-A-Biz program has been around in one form or another for the last four years. It started off about four years ago when Kate and I were looking at a variety of entrepreneurial things to do in Maine and she came across this thing called a lemonade day and she said, okay Don, you're on your own. I'm going to go work with the kids. Yes, I did. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was sitting down with yellow, light green and stacey half full and it was actually five years ago and here we are today. So for the first two years, Kate followed the lemonade day national formula and kids were building lemonade stands all over Maine but she heard from the parents and the kids that they wanted to do more and so Kate being an entrepreneur herself came up with this idea that we now call Build-A-Biz. So she gathered together with her board of directors and she worked with some great resources to develop some basic curriculum to help kids get that start to take the beginnings of an idea and turn it into a business and it has been growing over these last two years and you're seeing the fruits of the results that these kids they really look excited when they are talking about their businesses. Because it's not just any old lemonade stand, it's their idea which is really a great thing. So over those years they participated not only in the local statewide business Build-A-Biz programs but also in global, national and Maine entrepreneurship week. And one of the things we did was we actually took the program and instead of having just a physical book we put it online so the kids and parents and coaches have access to it 24 seven either by phone or on computer and that has been we've been able to reach reach right you know a lot further out into rural Maine which is what we were looking to do and even though all of the kids aren't able to come and join us as far as you know we would like them to you know we are slowly growing that out there which is what you know we want to do and so that's you know that's been important for me too and the things that we have added in the last two years what we've been able to do this and thanks mostly to Rob Aldachi is where we've had the elevator pitch competition and here Rob say hi yeah yes thank you and thank you to channel five for filming it and so everybody else can see it so thank you very much Brian yeah just so community television network is the public access network here in Portland and so for those of you who don't really understand what's going on you're being filmed and this is going to be aired on that public access television network so if you want to see this make sure you watch ctn five and in addition next week uh Tuesday the show that is featuring the winner of this year's build a bit is competition is going to start airing so it's really pretty exciting and so that's a good segue into I want to introduce the last year's winners who is here miss Olivia Dan boys can you come wave and turn around say hi to everybody thank you so much for coming you are our first winner and we are going to follow you through your progress and we cannot tell you what she is working on because she is working on a pattern with attorneys down in uh Boston and also with Hugh with the UMO manufacturing system up in 4 and 0 so you'll keep us posted and so with that I'm actually gonna we're gonna talk about the this year's finalist and winners so the first winner raya morrow can you come forward tell us a little bit about your pat pouch okay well my invention and but my business is called the pat pouch which is the pet aroma therapy pouch and this product is like it's a tea bag that you use in a tart warmer and um when you put this tea the tart warmer in a place where dogs will be staying while you're gone and with this product you can provide your dogs with separation anxiety it's a mental disease that a lot of dogs in America have and by using my product you can prevent them from getting this mental disease and I didn't know dogs have anxiety so we have two anxiety winners today incidentally second place was omg anxiety with anxiety and self-conscious problems and ocd and it's um mainly for um littler kids who don't enjoy therapy as much as older kids um do and um it is built with strategies filtered through games so that little kids understand it more and it's you know more fun so um it really sticks with them when they play it and I've gone on a lot of other websites that um are supposed to do this and um most of them were created by adults so not all of them were very kid friendly and um so this one is by kids who have anxiety and those problems so they know what it's like and are going to fix that and how old are you and 10 years old and you're writing this program yes I am and just as an illustration of the small community of Maine where dad Dan Kaloski is actually a mentor in the top gun entrepreneurship program that I run so it all it all kind of flows together unbelievable and then our other two finalists that pitched I mean the judges had a really hard time speaking of judges where is Jennifer there she is so the small business development center give up their time each year to go through the plethora of uh applications and I mean I go through them first make sure they're complete so they don't get hundreds of them uh and then what we have decided is that the video they are able to understand the kids a lot more so for the competition next year they have to have videos for the Bangor uh elevator pitch competition so be aware kids that's what it's going to be for next year so so thank you for yes I'm I guess I'm giving you your job for next year so next okay hailey our our third finalist the company is called gold elephant and the product that I sell is the lip savvy set this set is a three-step system the system is a lip scrub a lip balm and a lip balm and the lip balm is a lip balm with some protection and each of these products can be replaced once you have run out and all the set comes in a little pouch all right and I try tried some and don't my lips look like a couple mentors here they're talking with hailey today so we're trying so hard to help these kids further along with their ideas so if anybody else has any ideas let's help them along and so our fourth finalist there she is Caitlyn Reiner can you want to come up here each of these four kids are actually tapping into some things that we all need hello um whoa my business is called errands for the elderly and it's a business completely run by teenagers we provide services to the older community at very affordable prices and I think it's not just about the services it's more about bridging the generation gap and creating bonds I think that matters a lot as well so yeah that's great and hopefully by elderly she doesn't mean me some days I feel more elderly than others so at this uh at this point actually I'm gonna switch um I'd like to take this opportunity to thank some of the partner organizations that have helped make this happen although Cait does an amazing amount of work she really relies on a lot of partner organizations to reach out to kids and help really make the education happen so we want to recognize a few of them uh Karen Seymour I don't know whether she's here tonight but she was instrumental at the Portland rec department in bringing Bill to this to the kids there uh Kristen Marsh who's the program director of the Portland Boys and Girls Club she's been involved for the last two years and it really does an amazing job is she here yes Cindy Ripley and Melissa Cormier of Waterville Boys and Girls Club they they got into the program this year they really went full steam ahead and did a lot with the the kids I don't know whether they made it here another important partner uh town square media Mike Marcello where are you here okay so um they have radio stations all across Maine and because they kind of took uh Molly and Emma under their wing and put them on the radio fill the biz as a result got volunteers uh recognition grammar lessons and registration it was really great so thank you for all of your help there part of Bitterford uh Delilah Pupori uh we'll be here later she actually went out and she was so inspired by the program she visited three different schools she gave four different classes in the Bitterford-Saco and Rundle area and really helped get kids inspired there um we did mention uh Rob Baldacci uh The Pitch Me Show and Jennifer Sherwood at Maine Small Business Development Centers who really have been they've been uh contributing as judges for all four years the Maine Mall has also been a major partner by allowing registration events uh at the Maine Mall so they've been really instrumental in getting the word out uh and then finally also important I think they they had to go off and work but they the students at USM's SIFE and then now Anactus program which is a really active student service entrepreneurship program there they've developed videos for the curriculum that they developed this year a really cool entrepreneur game do we have that on display yeah in the back right in the back so if you you know want to play entrepreneur that's a game that they've actually developed as as part of the overall program so that's really kind of fun also want to take this opportunity uh as a non-profit there's a board of directors that has contributed a lot uh Steve Wallace uh who's the chair he's done a great job leading the charge and he'll be doing that as the organization cars out in the future according to what the parents and the kids are asking for uh Stacey Haskell of Bangor Savings Bank she's not here tonight but she's the vice chair and absolutely a huge supporter in getting the funding to support these important programs over the last four years also a huge thanks to Lisa Panette Lisa I see you wave the back there when she joined the board uh she she told Kate Kate uh and Lisa go back a long ways back to Jackman and uh she said well I don't know how to support a non-profit board of directors but she's been a huge help excuse me uh Kevin Brunel treasurer are you here Kevin yes thank you um Michelle New York who is at Southern Main Community College uh the entrepreneur guru there uh Kyle Kirby a lawyer at Pierce Atwood and an entrepreneur enthusiast is Kyle here yes thank you Kyle Tom Leonard a Chinbo project manager and a long time friend of Kate yeah Tom's in the back there Angie Hilton who owns her own media company Northeast Media she's a really great at it Angie yes despite being uh having that big boot on her and also just want to give special recognition until Jill Barkley I know she had to get ready to run off but I don't know that she's still here but she was executive director for about eight months during the past year um then finally it's also important to recognize sponsors uh non-profits depend on sponsor uh sponsors who get their funding uh because unfortunately there is no state funding for uh kid entrepreneurship um there are I think something like 25 different sponsors a whole bunch uh gave in kind and cash I'm only gonna uh have time to read the names of a few so Main Technology Institute Pierce Atwood Balduchian Business ProSearch Main and Company Town Square Media Portland GWY Oxford Networks and finally saving the most important for last Bangor Savings Bank uh I can't emphasize how important that their support has been to help Kate keep going um with you know doing a startup when it's a regular business is hard doing a non-profit startup is amazingly hard and Bangor Savings Bank support has really been critical for that so thank you sponsors and I'd like to recognize kids now are for their kidpreneur stories and Main and Company has been working with me for a few years in support of that and we didn't let this out this year because I wanted it to be a surprise so the kidpreneurs were here and they don't know it so first place kidpreneur story this year they they're unique they touch your soul they have passion and the two top winners this year first place goes to Caitlyn Rainer and the second little cute story goes to North and Nibbles Mike can I get to come up here Mike Morrison so we have uh a special a couple of special awards here what are we gonna call this we're gonna what are we gonna call this we're gonna go this new uh Main's radio new voice award to Molly and Emma Carlton they can join the morning have a cute morning show tomorrow anybody hear the radio show of the radio commercial that they did it was amazing and Molly come here and Molly gets another prize for the best lemonade stand she has been doing it for four years that every year she adds on something new and two years ago when it was pouring she added on a drive-thru where her dad stood out there with an umbrella and there's one more there is so oh why I still have a couple more oh you do have a couple more okay well how don't you do though they're not on this list okay where's tree super cool car washing he's raising money he raised more than enough money to adopt a seal actually for Melissa and Cindy because you girls did such an amazing job jumping into this this year I get up there to meet them and I look in the back garden they're doing all this like shuffling back and forth he made this huge banner welcome Kate build a business all right so where are those black hole brownie kids yum come here Samantha just because I know you like to give me a hug preventing Kate's trailblazer where are those PBJ great job you're welcome gonna hug no okay that's okay Holly and Emma you're just gonna go home with lots of stuff cake loves gifts last one that's not on the list is yeah this person just it just brings tears in my eyes she always just goes above and beyond and I just I you know it's not I can't do enough for her so would you come up here Lisa Panette get through this without we have a lot of mental nervous support all of these things get done with a huge team of people but there's always somebody at the head who maybe doesn't get enough thanks and so as Mr. Kate today I wanted to make sure that opportunity was not missed um I don't know if I can do this without breaking up here but um many of you may not know that over the four years that Kate's been doing this she's had she showed a great deal of the entrepreneurial grit that it takes to be successful grid is that character that when things get tough you keep going to help make things happen and she's had three back operations and the replacement and she's been suffering from daily extreme migraines for the last five months and yet she's kept on making this program the success it is today so I just wanted to give an opportunity for all the kids and who all the other people have been part of enough a part of this great program to say thank you to Kate so thank you everybody I couldn't have done it without all of you and all I and all I can say is we're going to be bigger next year right spread the word