I didn't grow up around entrepreneurs or as part of a family business. My dad worked in management for a Fortune 500 company and my mom was a homemaker. I thought that business meant "going to the office and dealing with meetings and numbers all day." When I saw my dad truly happy was outside of work, so I equated passion and creativity with hobbies, not work.
Then I attended PFEW. PFEW planted the seed of entrepreneurship when a speaker noted that all of those in the audience who babysat, mowed lawns, sold lemonade, etc. WERE entrepreneurs. He talked about babysitters becomes schoolteachers and daycare center owners, about kids who mowed lawns becoming owners of landscape companies. I wrote stories and sold them to relatives and friends as a child.
At PFEW I began to realize that I could combine my love of English and writing (my passion) with a business as an entrepreneur. Jodi Brandon Editorial celebrated 20 years in spring 2018. That quite literally wouldn't have been possible without PFEW.
If I can help even one PFEW participant plant that seed (and I know from keeping in touch with so many of them over the years that I have), then serving each summer is time well spent.
