Louth's Rampark National School scoops national award

5th Class at Rampark National School, Jenkinstown, Co. Louth were today honoured with the Marketing Gurus Award in the All-Island Junior Entrepreneur Awards, for their JEP business, Scrubalicious. The project was one of just 12 category winners out of over 200 projects submitted. 

The children created a range of 100% natural and organic body, hand, and lip scrubs, designed to be kind to both skin and the environment. Many popular scrubs today contain harmful chemicals and come in single-use plastic packaging. The class set out to change that by creating gentle, eco-friendly products made with only natural ingredients.

“Sustainability is at the heart of the business” said a class representative. “Our scrubs are packaged in reusable containers, helping reduce plastic waste. To support this further, we launched Re-fill Fridays — a weekly event where customers can return their containers to our school stall and purchase ref-ills at a discounted price. This encourages sustainable habits while rewarding loyal customers”

In addition to launching a successful business, the class successfully communicated their sustainability message and raised awareness about harmful skincare products. They maintained customers’ interest by introducing new scents at regular intervals and generated €250 in additional sales through the Re-fill Friday initiative. 

The class made a total profit of €750. They plan to make a donation to charity and are planning a pizza and ice cream party before the school holidays.

Thousands of Irish entrepreneurs have mentored 5th and 6th class primary school pupils while they create and launch mini businesses in their schools. Children are inspired by local entrepreneurs invited to the classroom to share their stories. EY Entrepreneur of the Year Alumni also volunteer their time to visit schools in their counties.

The Junior Entrepreneur Programme is a real-life, immersive entrepreneurship skills programme for 5th and 6th class primary school children, nurturing confidence, resilience, creativity, problem-solving skills, and teamwork and engaging pupils of all abilities. It is offered free of charge to schools on the island of Ireland. JEP started in Kerry in 2010. It was rolled out nationally in 2013 with the support of serial entrepreneur Jerry Kennelly. The businesses created by the participating pupils have achieved sales of over €3 million. The profits generated belong to the participating class, who frequently opt to donate a proportion to charity. 

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For further information: www.juniorentrepreneur.ie

Schools that complete the programme can enter their projects into the JEP awards. Twelve different Category Awards focus on key aspects of the programme, including creativity, teamwork, marketing and finance, as well as important themes such as health, community, sustainability, technology, and social impact. The category awards celebrate classes that perform exceptionally well in every aspect of the programme and are outstanding in one area.  One class is named overall Class of the Year. Classes that achieve an excellent standard in a specific category receive a Merit in that category.