BUFFALO, N.Y. — Starting your own business is a big task. Some people go to college just to learn the essentials. But one woman is helping to bring those lessons to fourth graders.

Tracy Cooley understands that brainstorming is one of the building blocks of good business.

Kids like Javonni Reid are getting their feet wet through the Youth Entrepreneurship Program, or YES.

“How to profit, how to work as a team, how to agree on ideas,” Reid said about what he learned in the course so far.

Cooley makes this all happen.

It’s one of several groups she helps run, ranging from mentoring programs to women’s empowerment symposiums.

They're initiatives close to her heart.

“I had young children and growing up in the inner city of Buffalo, just seeing the impact of that of the violence and in the choices young people were making, and I wanted to do something to try to alleviate those decisions and turn them in from bad decision making and a good decision making,” she explained.

In YES, these fourth graders are taught everything from target markets to profit margins.

For them, it starts small.

“We're gonna get our profit and then we can then we can buy stuff of our own,” said fourth-grader Nisa Wilson.

They sell T-shirts around school and make real money from it. 

“We want to plant those seeds, get minority-owned businesses out here and let them know that they can do this and be successful at doing it and support them every step of the way,” Cooley said.

They put time into this project, just like Cooley puts time into them.

“That's the thing I never stop...so a lot of time goes into everything,” Cooley said.

She works a separate full-time job, writes curriculums, finds partnerships and applies for grants in her spare time.

“Entrepreneurship classes isn't in an elementary school setting curriculum," she explained. "The exposure they're getting here is something that's brand new for them.”

Seeing how much the kids take from this makes it worth it. 

“When I get older, I'm gonna know how to use this profit and live off of it and not just buy random things,” said fourth-grader Ajanaiya Jacobs.

The idea is to inspire the next generation.

“We are going to create a website and start it off as a lemonade stand and we will get a permit," said Reid of his idea. "Then we're gonna upgrade it into a restaurant and like a national public area.”

The program gives them the tools to make it happen.

“Hopefully that peer pressure that we all always run into turns into that positive peer pressure," said Cooley. "Let's all become entrepreneurs, right?”

The YES program is building back up after COVID-19 shutdowns.

Cooley is working on grants to bring it to other schools and community centers.

If you want to get involved, you can email wavebuffalo1@gmail.com or call Cooley at 716-316-7351 or her co-founder Marilyn Young at 716-848-0515.