Wee Willie Wonkas

Brenna Barrios and Carissa Sherman had only a small table’s worth of

candy to sell, but they already had set their goals as businesswomen.

“We kind of want the girls to bounce off the walls,” said Brenna,

11, as she sat at her makeshift store on the grounds of Girls Inc. in

Costa Mesa.

“Everything in it has sugar, except the Corn Nuts,” added Carissa,

10, pointing to their supply of Tootsie Pops, Jolly Ranchers and

jumbo Pixie Stix.

Someday in the future, the Costa Mesa girls may be candy tycoons,

but last Wednesday they were running one of 11 tiny businesses at

Girls Inc.

Nevertheless, they had learned more about starting a business than

many people twice their age. During the previous weeks in the Youth

Empowerment and Self-sufficiency program, they had learned how to

apply for a business license, how to pay a lease -- even how to bid

on a location.

Every summer Girls Inc. holds the program for 8- to 12-year-old

girls who want to polish their entrepreneurial skills. Participants

spend the first few weeks attending workshops and conceiving

businesses. By the time the girls open their shops in early August,

they’ve invented a fictional city and created their own currency.

This year, the city was called Radar’s Revenge, named after one

girl’s pink stuffed bear, and the construction-paper currency was

known as “bear bucks.” The girls earned bear bucks for attending

preliminary classes, then pooled their savings to pay for leases and

licenses.

On Wednesday, the girls opened their stands both indoors and

outdoors at Girls Inc. Among the offerings were a beauty salon, a

restaurant and a dance studio that came complete with a snack bar. As

business owners sat below their signs, other girls milled around the

grounds with bear bucks in hand.

Some of the participants had done the empowerment program before.

Ianna Stewart, 11, who co-founded the dance studio, ran a general

store last year and played Cheetah Girls music to lure in customers.

“Last year, I actually got the Best Customer Service Award,

because I was playing music, and it was comfortable,” Ianna said.

At the end of every summer, Girls Inc. administrators give out a

number of awards, including Business Owner of the Year and Most

Creative. Brenna said she won the latter prize last year after her

group built a claw machine full of candy.

“We didn’t make a lot of money, but we won an award,” she said.

Lucy Santana, executive director of Girls Inc., said the

empowerment program is one of the nonprofit center’s most popular

offerings.

“This is one of the programs the younger girls really look forward

to being a part of,” she said. “They say, ‘I can’t wait to be 8 years

old.’”

* SCHOOL’S OUT is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

writer Michael Miller visits a summer camp within the Newport-Mesa

area and writes about the experience.