Austin Chamber of Commerce and Chicago Austin Youth Travel Adventures nonprofit are using $30,000 in state funding to hold an eight-week workshop to teach West Side youth how to turn their dreams into businesses.
The Youth Entrepreneurship Initiative is held on Monday afternoons from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Austin College and Career Academy high school, 231 N. Pine Ave. The initiative kicked off on April 6 and continues until June 1. Over the next eight weeks, high schoolers will learn how to create their own business plans.
Travel agent Crystal Dyer, who heads Chicago Austin Youth Travel Adventures and currently serves as president on the chamber’s Board of Directors, told Austin Weekly News that they wanted to help youth become business owners and make them more confident as public speakers.
Dyer said that she was impressed with what she saw on April 6, saying that, while most of the youth had no background in business, they threw themselves into discussions with creativity and enthusiasm.
“The youth was so engaged,” she said. “I was like these kids are jamming. People say things about the youth in these communities, but these youth, they were outstanding and they were just full of ideas,
The funding came from a state grant state Rep. Camille Lilly (D-78th) secured for the North Lawndale-based Helping Our People Everyday (H.O.P.E.) Coalition.
According to details shared with Austin Weekly News, the sessions will feature lessons on fundamentals of starting a business. Business owners from a wide range of fields volunteered to mentor the youth on the specifics on what it takes to make it their particular field. Among them, Dyer said, is Edmund Hodges, president of operations at Blue Creative Consulting Group business development firm, and Corey Phillips, head of Social Storm youth business education firm.
The youth will work with mentors to come up with a concept for a business and turn that concept into a business plan. They will then present their ideas as “Stark Tank-style” pitches. Dyer said that first, second and third place students will get iPads and some help with getting those ideas off the ground. The first-place winner will also get help incorporating their business with the state of Illinois, getting a city business license, as well as free business cards and flyers.
The program is free to the participating students – and, what’s more, Dyer said that they will get stipends upon completing it. While some students attend Austin High School, others come from other West Side schools.
The initiative is designed for up to 25 students. Dyer said that eight attended the initial meeting, but she said she expected the attendance to go up. Some interested Austin High students were attending ACT prep sessions last Monday, and Dyer said that principal Dr. LaTacia Morgan-Greene assured her that the students will attend the workshop going forward.
Dyer hopes that this eight-week program is just the start of something bigger.
“We hope to extend it also for the next school year, and then also with some other schools,” Dyer said.
Austin High School through the decades
Austin High School was one of the community’s oldest schools, dating back to 1867, before Austin was annexed to Chicago. At its height, the school had almost 7,000 students.
When South Austin started transitioning from majority-white to majority-Black in the 1960s, it had many resources. Amanda Logan, a retired judge and Austin high alumna, said that it was seen as a better alternative to East Garfield Park’s Marshall High School. But, as the demographics shifted, many programs and resources that she was able to take advantage of early on started to scale down or disappear, she added.
As the enrollment and academic markers declined in the early 2000s, Chicago Public School district took the radical step of closing down the original school effective 2007 and using the campus to open three smaller high schools: Austin Polytechnical Academy, Austin Business and Entrepreneurship Academy and Virtual Opportunities Inside a School Environment (VOISE) Academy High School.
In February 2016, the Chicago Board of Education voted to merge Austin Polytech and Austin Academy into VOISE Academy. Austin Weekly News reported at the time that, following the revamp, the combined enrollment dropped by around 50%. Because individual schools’ budgets were heavily based on how many students attended, it was hoped that the recombined school would have more resources while reducing staff expenses.
The board voted to give the consolidated school its current name in 2017. The name was more than symbolic – at the time, CBE approved the school getting a College and Career Preparatory High School curriculum.
According to CPS, Austin High School currently enrolls 114 students. By comparison, it had 218 students in 2018. The numbers have fluctuated in the past seven school years, but they never reached 300.
According to the Illinois State Board of Education, 54.5% of all students graduated as of the 2024-2025 school year.
