 Welcome to Adventures in Small Business, a cooperative show with the U.S. Small Business Administration Hawaii District Office, the Hawaii Small Business Development Center, the Mink Center for Business and Leadership, and the Veterans Business Outreach Center of the Pacific to showcase the stories of local entrepreneurs and small businesses. I'm Colleen McAllunny from the Patsy T. Mink Center for Business and Leadership, and today we have Brittany Montiliano here to join us. Good afternoon. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you Colleen for having me. So today we are speaking to Brittany. She is actually also from the Patsy T. Mink Center for Business and Leadership, and she's going to tell us a little bit about herself to start off with and her background. Thank you Colleen. So I am the program coordinator for the Mink Center for Business and Leadership, so I work with Colleen as well as Terry, our director to help with small businesses by providing them with resources along with our leadership development programs and also our entrepreneur programs. Excellent. That's great. So tell us a little bit about your background before you came to MCBL. So before I came to MCBL, I was actually working and getting my degree in marketing and communications, and then I also ended up getting my degree also in graphic design. So that's really helped me pursue my interests. I was really interested in event planning and coordination, so I wanted to try to try to figure out some degrees to help, or what degree would help me get there. Excellent. That's great. And so what was your first experience with the Mink Center? So my first experience with the Mink Center is actually I had learned about the program because I was actually interested myself in starting my own business. Because I was interested in event planning, I wanted to start my own wedding planning business. So I had come across Nuala at one of the business fairs, and I had ended up scheduling a meeting with her to discuss my plans and what it is that I wanted to do. And she was really great in talking to me about the things that actually go into starting a business and the nuances. So it was really great because she helped you shed some light on creating a business plan and all the work that goes into starting a business. Right. And so you felt like you gained some, a lot of knowledge, important, important maybe strategic issues that you might need to deal with in starting a business and all of the obstacles that needed to be overcome. Right. Definitely. Because up until that point I had been doing a lot of planning for friends parties as well as family's parties. And I had assisted them in putting that together. And so when I had decided to take that step to actually formalizing my plan, I had a general idea of what went into starting a business. However, because of that, I didn't really know about all of the details that go into what you need to do in order to start it. Like registering your business as well as having a business plan and then also to the contracts that go into working with clients, insurance. And the biggest thing also is how to write a business plan. And I think my experience with the center has actually shown me that it is actually one of the harder, one of the harder things to do for a new business owner because that is basically your pathway to your business. And it shows those that are interested in your business or even getting funding for it to let them know about what it is that you want to do and how you are going to, what the goals that you have to get there. Right. Right. Oh, that's great that you were, that she was so much helped you. So just some information. So Noella is a business counselor at the Mink Center, correct? Right. So she's our main business, she's our main business counselor for the center and then also too, she is really great because she even acts as our instructor for our business workshops. So I actually ended up attending some of her workshops in the past as well and she is really great. She's able to, she's very personal and able to answer your questions. And the great thing about it is as well, I noticed when you are trying to start your own business is that a lot of times you have it up in your own head, but you don't really have that perspective to really reflect and ask the questions that probably should be asked, especially to if you don't have any business background. And so because of that, what happened with, what happened for my own business is that after going through the process, I decided to put a hold on those plans and start my own business and decided to pursue getting my college degree, which I thought that would be more important in the long run, would essentially help me later on in the future to start my own business. So right now I don't, I haven't started, I haven't started yet, but maybe in the future I will. Okay. So there were obstacles in your way in that it was trying to create the business plan was challenging and then also thinking that you wanted to put your college education first before starting your own business. Right. Because one of the important things that I had taken from my meetings with Novala is that when you are starting your business, it's not instantaneous your success. Rather you, rather for business owners, it's actually a five-year plan and that's normally the gauge to measure your success. You don't really see profits coming in around that time until the five-year or even 10-year depending upon what it is that you're doing and how you're doing it. And so what she was really telling me is that to think hard about what it is that you want to do and if you have the passion to do it, if you have the passion and the determination to do it, you can. However, you also have to think about what else goes into starting your business because since you are not able to see the, I guess, fruits of your success right away, a lot of times for business owners, that's what is the hardest because they're expecting to get all of this money right away and to be able to make back the money that they've invested. However, what she had mentioned is that a lot of times new business owners, they actually do have side jobs at the beginning until that point that they are successful enough that they can actually run their business full-time. Oh, that's excellent. I'm so glad to hear that. She gave you that advice and she gives others that advice because the first thing we always say and she always says is don't quit your day job until you have some revenue coming in to support yourself. Very important words and suggestions for entrepreneurs and new entrepreneurs. Oh, fantastic. And so what, since you did make that choice to not start your own business and to finish off your college education, do you think that it's still an option for you in the future? I think definitely I do want to pursue it but what had happened is after I got my college degree is that I found out that for event planning, it's not just the options that are out there isn't just through starting your own business or working for an event planning business. However, there's a lot of organizations out there that do need help with event planning and because of that I actually was able to make connections with a lot of great organizations that are here in the community and especially to was it with MCBL or the Main Center for Business and Leadership and you wouldn't think that but I found that is really great and what I like most about the Main Center is that I get to help people while doing what I love. Oh, fantastic. That's great and we really appreciate it too because Brittany is awesome, especially at events. Thank you so much but then you also have another side too that you're that you are really great at and that's your graphic design and marketing. Right and so for as far as the graphic design and marketing, I kind of just even though I had done it in school, I just kind of really stumbled upon it because when I had first gotten into college, I had pretty much pursued the communication path, the communication route which is more directed to public relations and events. However, I had taken a break to work for a little for some time and then I ended up going back to school but that's how I found graphic design and so for me what I realized while I was working is that I need something that will allow me to be creative. So events provides that but also I found that graphic design and marketing it also provides that avenue for my creative desires I guess you could say and so I found that I really like it how all of those pieces they come together and being able to see your work being used in organizations and to help support their missions and their goals. Oh great okay so that's a wonderful segue for us to start talking about one of the programs that's coming up at the Mink Center at YWCA Oahu which is the Girl Summit Youth Spring Break program. Yes so we've actually been working on this for well the Mink Center we've actually been working on this for a while so we actually had our first girl summit youth program last year and so now we are going into our second year and so we will be having that for a spring break actually. Oh excellent so this is this is the first spring break program that you've had and I believe the first pilot was over the summer for a week over the summer and it was generously sponsored by a Nordstrom grant through YWCA National and given to YWCA's across the country who have supportive programs of youth and ours are specifically for girls at the Mink Center. So what does just give us a brief outline of what the summit or for the week the spring break week is going to cover what is it what's it focused on? So essentially the girl summit youth program it's actually a spin-off of our girl summit program for high school students but what we really believe through the Mink Center is that girls should be nurtured through all ages and through their development and so that is why we extended it to the younger generation younger generation so our girl summit youth program is directed towards girls in grade 68 so middle schoolers and what we really try to do during the program is to give them the tools through our workshops as well as through our program to nurture and empower them and then also to to help expand to actually expand their horizons and so we do that through different workshops like I said with self-defense and creative writing and then also to we have yoga as well as low hood and neighborhood. Oh that's fantastic that's a really vulnerable age for girls especially six through eighth grade it's kind of a trying time both socially and just in school of course but it's an important time to boost confidence and so I'm sure it's a fabulous program definitely so it's girls six through eighth grade so that's what like nine to thirteen or nine to twelve? Yes I believe it's actually nine to thirteen depending upon where they where their birthday falls in the year right because like you were saying it's really the time that you know they start making their where they are very impressionable and there's a lot of pressures from them to be a certain way and we want to show them that they can be confident in themselves and who they are and what they like and by exploring all of these different areas. Oh fantastic okay great so we're going to take a little break now and when we come back we'll dive into the girl summit youth program for spring break thank you. 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Okay welcome back to Adventures in Small Business I have Brittany Montiliano here today the program coordinator from the Patsy T. Mink Center for Business and Leadership and today we're talking about the Mink Center's girl summit youth program and they're actually launching their first spring break program and what were the dates for that Brittany? So the dates for this spring break program is March 18th through 22nd so it's really awesome because it's actually an all-day program that will be holding at the YWCO Wahoo in the at the downtown location so it's an all-day program like I said from eight until five so parents especially the ones that are working in downtown they can drop their kids off in the morning and then they don't have to worry about what it is that they're doing and then also too they're doing something productive and creative. Oh that's excellent very convenient. Yes. So let's see give us a little rundown on what the day's schedule will be it'll be five days eight to five so what are the girls going to be doing? So the girls what they'll be doing is actually so they'll be starting off their day after they get dropped off with the yoga session and meditation session and then that will be followed by some reading and writing that they'll be doing so we want to make sure that they increase their knowledge and then also too that's going to be followed by that's actually going to be followed on a in-depth session about some influential speak or some influential women actually around the world and of course we're going to have them learn and talk about Patsy Mink, Queen Lillio Hulani, Julia Morgan who actually built the YWCA but then also to internationally like Malala or even Oberwind Free. Oh excellent so there's a touch of influential powerful Hawaiian women and then also nationally on the national scope with Malala being someone a little closer to their age. Oh excellent that sounds really exciting. Yeah so what we found actually in our previous program is that the girls they really enjoyed learning about these women and it inspired them as well for their own lives and so after we have that we normally follow that up by a field trip that they'll be taking after that so we have actually field trips to several areas around the downtown area so like the Hawaii State Museum of Art as well as Foster Botanical Gardens and then even Queen's Hospital. Oh fantastic that's great and then are they I think one of the days are they going to the library the state library? Oh yes yes they are and so we have the state library and then also too we even have them going to well they're actually going to have a they're actually going to have field trip to see a stunt woman so that's really exciting. Oh that's neat. Right so we actually have a portion of the day that is dedicated to self-defense so we noticed that last year that the girls were really excited about that so we tried to incorporate that into our program and then at the end of the day we kind of wrap things up where the girls have a creative writing session and so what happens actually with that creative writing is that it goes towards something that they can take home at the end of the week and that is actually well right here so the girls actually they work collaboratively each day to create this book and so this is actually the book from our earlier session our earlier program and it's titled Aloha and so basically if you go through the book it actually goes over all of the key points that we try to touch upon with the girls and teach them about the aloha spirit so and if you look at it all of this artwork is actually created by them as well so that's really nice so the points that we are is okahi so meaning kindness and to be expressed with tenderness uh and then so these are actually some pages that we have from the rest of the book and then aloha hi so aloha hi meaning unity to be expressed with harmony uh so each day has a word from the aloha spirit um um guideline yes i'm i'm i can't remember what it's the aloha spirit uh it's actually a rule or a um put into law right so it's actually a statute in the government uh so that was something that was surprising to me because i hadn't heard of that but uh so it's pretty funny for a lot of people where they use the term aloha very loosely however there's actually a strict definition within our state uh within our state government about what aloha is and we try to uh teach the girls about that and so that is why uh throughout the throughout each day we try to touch upon one aspect of the aloha spirit to help them really you know figure out well how does that apply to their lives but then also to how does how can they use that to help the community right oh fantastic that's great and so they so the order of the day is they have a yoga class every day right so they have yoga every morning and then they move to like a reading and or reading and writing reading and writing like a reading and creative writing and then they focus on one specific strong woman in uh the community either here or nationally and then they do a self defense class every day yes oh that's wonderful and then they do a field trip every day yes oh okay okay excellent and then they wrap it up by doing some artwork and some writing that culminates in a book by the end of the week great and uh so the good thing about it like i was saying is that it's a collaborative effort because a lot of times um and i mean we do this as adults as well is that we get so stuck in working by ourselves however uh what we like to show them is that if they were collaboratively that you know who knows what you can do and so it's really great for them to be able to have this and have uh you know be able to translate what they've learned into something that they can actually bring home and share with their family so it doesn't stop at the on friday when they finish the program but they can actually have this to remember for the rest of their lives and share with their friends and family that's great and then what is there like a little booklet or something that you bought that the girls created um actually yes so the great thing about our center is that we through our work and through what we do uh with the small business community we've actually made some really great connections uh with a lot of great businesses and so one of them is actually brathie and lily so uh we actually worked with stacey nomura nomura from brathie and lily to create this uh really cute book and so um so what we did is that we asked stacey if she could help us with uh putting together the girls artwork to create some sort of momentum that we can give to the girls every time you have a girl submit or any of our other programs to bring home with them oh okay so it's really nice actually if you look at it so all of these pieces of art you can actually find also two in our buck right so we have the rainbow as well as the pineapple and the ywca the ywca of course and then also two hawaii so this is something that we actually uh have the girls think about about what is important from their days and so just translating it into a piece and it's a great thing as well for us to show them is that uh even though they have the book there are other things as well that um you know they can do with their art as um as another option oh fantastic and so um was this was also available for the girl summit also right right and when was the last girl summit that you had so actually the most recent girl summit that we had was a maui so the great the great thing about uh girl summit is that we've uh found so much success actually with a girl summit awapu that we've actually expanded it to the neighbor islands oh fantastic and so uh we actually just finished producing this book and so we are able to share it with uh the girl summit maui uh attendees so there we had uh more than 50 girls high school girls attend the program and uh they were able to see it and so the feedback was so great because they were like oh that's so cute and it's something that is just their own it's not something that they can also find in any store it's special just uh for the exclusive for girl summit yes exclusive for girl summit so really wonderful so the girls summit itself is geared towards high school girls yes and that was on maui right and um that was with the help of um the maui economic development board women in tech right and uh fantastic that's wonderful that was in Kahului yes so they actually so uh so med beef shorter uh so they uh so they're really great in helping us to really draw in uh or really uh to help us with putting together such a strong program uh so the theme of that particular girl summit uh girl summit program was uh women um well stem with stem and engineering so it was really great to actually see uh we had a speaker that came in uh from what's it the huayi observatory and so she was actually able to teach them a really cool um they actually had a really cool exercise uh where they had to come up come up with their own uh design to actually withstand uh heat and fire and so they had this testing with that they did where uh was it they had to see who could actually create a design that could be put up against fire and be able to last the longest so apparently before that um apparently before that particular girl summit the record was i think it was seven minutes however we had someone actually bypass that and uh was able to uh have ten minutes uh have a prototype that was able to withstand ten minutes of heat and flame and it could have even have lasted longer so that was a major accomplishment that's great that's great okay so swinging back to the girl summit youth i think we have some pictures of the pilot program over the summertime that we can get a look at and kind of take a look there's the girls with our y w c a symbol and um the girl summit youth spring break and then let's see let's go to the next picture oh yep there's our cover that's great and there they are oh okay so those are cards did they make the cards yes so they actually made the cards so in addition to writing the book we try to give them other opportunities to um to be able to explore creatively so what we the project that we have given them because they had visited queen's hospital earlier in the week they had uh they had actually created cards for the patients at queen's and what queens have mentioned to us is that they um so they actually have some patients that are there for a little longer and so the girls actually had the opportunity to meet some of them and so their way to get back to the hospital was to create some cards for those patients to give to their friends and family while they're in the hospital so uh it was really great because what they did is that it really helped to it's just a small um token but it really meant a lot to the patients in the hospital there oh great okay let's see we have another picture i think oops oh yeah so this one is actually at the governor's office so another awesome thing about the program is that we give the girls the opportunity to go to the state capitol and actually to meet with some of the legislators and in this particular visit they actually are able to go to the governor's office to meet him as well as to see what is out there i mean not too many people personally get to go out there to see what his office is like right um and they had the chance so oh terrific and then oh and then they had a visit with senator thielen also yes yes oh that's wonderful so a tour of the capitol that's fantastic that's great okay so um britney just tell me how anybody interested in sending their daughter to the girl summit uh spring break uh sorry girl summit youth spring break week in march how can they um get a hold of uh you to express their interest or how do they sign up so for the girls that are or anyone that is interested in sending their daughters or any girls that are interested in attending the program all they have to do is actually contact us so if they call us on our main line at 808-695-2635 or they can also email us at mcbl at ywcaowahu.org um and then we actually even have information on our facebook page so if they are interested they can check us out there or even on our website okay what's the website so mcblkawaii.org oh excellent well i want to thank britney montiliano for being here today on the adventures in small business show and we will look forward to seeing you next time thank you so much thank you