{"id":15219,"date":"2018-01-12T23:51:07","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T23:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2018\/01\/12\/clark-students-find-social-entrepreneurship-a-perfect-fit\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T09:53:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T13:53:54","slug":"clark-students-find-social-entrepreneurship-a-perfect-fit","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2018\/01\/12\/clark-students-find-social-entrepreneurship-a-perfect-fit\/","title":{"rendered":"Clark students find social entrepreneurship a perfect fit"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Clark University has produced numerous successful entrepreneurs, including Trustee Ronald Shaich ’76, L.H.D. ’14, founder of Panera Bread <\/a>and Au Bon Pain<\/a>, and Brad McNamara, M.B.A.\/ES &P ’13, co-founder of Freight Farms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"students
Clark students model ShirtShack + Co products: standing, from left, Valerie Diaz ’19, Priyanka Naithani ’21, Joshua DeSouza ’19, Emily  Michelfelder ’21 and Erik Boquist ’21; seated, from left, Kayla Falconer ’20 and Heidy Coronel ’21<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even better, many are social entrepreneurs, who share a vision of giving back to the community — Shaich oversaw the opening of Panera Cares Community Cafes<\/a>, confronting food insecurity in urban centers by letting customers pay what they could; McNamara’s business<\/a> promotes sustainability and environmentalism by supplying 40-foot shipping containers retrofitted to grow produce in any location and climate.<\/p>\n

Now three Clark University undergraduate students are following in the footsteps of such successful alumni social entrepreneurs. The three — Valerie Diaz ’19, Nana Lokko ’19 and Thanavee Sereeyothin ’18 — launched their socially committed business ventures as part of a final project last fall in The Art of the New: Entrepreneurship (ENT 115)<\/a>, taught by John Dobson<\/a>, associate professor of practice in the Graduate School of Management<\/a>. At the end of the semester, they donated part of their profits to worthy causes. Along the way, they picked up a slew of entrepreneurial skills.<\/p>\n

\"student
In a video, Thanavee Sereeyothin ’18 explains why he donated profits from his business to Elephant Nature Park in Thailand.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sereeyothin, a management<\/a> major and innovation and entrepreneurship<\/a> minor, worked with friends and family to import elephant pants — loose, flowing, comfortable pants most often featuring elephant prints — from his home country of Thailand. He started with 20 pairs, began selling them online through craigslist<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>, and then teamed up with a Thai student group at Boston University to sell more. He also found customers at an event at MIT geared toward Thai students attending colleges in the eastern U.S.<\/p>\n

In the end, he sold 100 pairs, making $900 in profit. He donated $300 to Elephant Nature Park<\/a>, a sanctuary and rescue center in northern Thailand.<\/p>\n

“This project gave me a stepping stone and a test run into a venture I want to create in the future,” Sereeyothin says. “The one thing I learned from this class is innovation and critical thinking. With those two skill sets, you could change $1 into $1,000.”<\/p>\n

\"Female
Chukwuma (Chima) Egbuzie ’19 and Kayla Falconer ’20 model ShirtShack wear.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Diaz, a political science<\/a> major and management minor, and Lokko, an economics<\/a> major, also launched a clothing company, ShirtShack + Co, which Diaz describes as “mainly focused on spreading good vibes and positivity through fashion.”<\/p>\n

They sold 50 shirts featuring slogans like “I am in charge of my story” and “You gon learn today.” They held a photo shoot, featuring students wearing the shirts, and posted the photos as part of a marketing campaign on Shirt Shack’s Instagram<\/a> account.<\/p>\n

They focused on giving back by creating a $300 scholarship, randomly selecting a student winner. That turned out to be Maria J. Miranda Moreno ’21 of Ecuador.<\/p>\n

“For choosing the person, we decided to do it randomly to get rid of the underlying labels that exist within choosing a scholarship recipient,” Diaz says. “We wanted to promote the idea that we accept you for who you are.”<\/p>\n

\"Valerie
Valerie Diaz ’19 and Nana Lokko ’19, co-founders of ShirtShack + Co, created a $300 scholarship from their profits.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The scholarship speaks to the ShirtShack founders’ goals. “We’re not just making money to have money; we’re also making money and using part of it to make a change in someone else’s life for the better,” Lokko says in a video about the class project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All three budding entrepreneurs say the course’s final project taught them skills that they would use at Clark and beyond.<\/p>\n

“I’ve learned to be more persistent and not take no for an answer,” Diaz says. “I’ve become more organized, and I also have desire to give back to the community.”<\/p>\n

Lokko, meanwhile, has this advice for students who want to launch businesses: “Go from failure to failure with enthusiasm. If something doesn’t work out, try something else. If that doesn’t work, keep going.”<\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clark University has produced numerous successful entrepreneurs, including Trustee Ronald Shaich ’76, L.H.D. ’14, founder of Panera Bread and Au Bon Pain, and Brad McNamara, M.B.A.\/ES &P ’13, co-founder of Freight Farms. Even better, many are social entrepreneurs, who share a vision of giving back to the community — Shaich oversaw the opening of Panera Cares Community Cafes, confronting food […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15220,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"#525250","story_headerImg":15220,"section_label":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[251],"displayed_author":[242],"featured":[],"topic":[214,151,406,367,153,273],"class_list":["post-15219","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-innovation","displayed_author-meredith-woodward-king","topic-entrepreneurship","topic-hands-on-learning","topic-liberal-education-and-effective-practice-leep","topic-major-in-management","topic-school-of-business","topic-social-change"],"yoast_head":"\nClark students find social entrepreneurship a perfect fit | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2018\/01\/12\/clark-students-find-social-entrepreneurship-a-perfect-fit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Clark students find social entrepreneurship a perfect fit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Clark University has produced numerous successful entrepreneurs, including Trustee Ronald Shaich ’76, L.H.D. ’14, founder of Panera Bread and Au Bon Pain, and Brad McNamara, M.B.A.\/ES &P ’13, co-founder of Freight Farms. 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