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Emily Morrison hails from Lucknow, Ontario and currently resides in Beaverton, Ontario – a small rural community nestled in Brock Township, along the shores of Lake Simcoe. Emily’s story for the Youth Engagement Showcase features not only her own involvements in her community, but some of the youth programming she has been instrumental in developing as well – programming that engages youth in the community, while fostering important entrepreneurial skills they will retain as they carry on in their lives.

Emily has a diverse resume, beginning with her roots on the family strawberry farm.  Managing a farm market, interacting with the public and grocery stores, and managing a bakery, all had a significant impact on Emily’s love for entrepreneurship. Building on her experience with the family farm, Emily started a small business while in university running her own ice cream parlour.

I didn’t realize how much the farm was a business at the time. I was born into it and it was my way of life, so I didn’t understand everything I was learning at the time. When I took some business classes in university, we studied things like HR, finance, scheduling and interacting with suppliers – it just hit me that this is stuff I had been doing since I was ten years old, working in the farm market and the family business. I had been doing these almost my entire life.

In 2014 Emily was contracted by the Brock Youth Centre (BYC) to help revitalize the centre and to build a culture of entrepreneurship among local youth. Emily, alongside colleagues at the Brock Youth Centre, has pioneered a hands-on training facility to teach entrepreneurship skills to local youth. In her role, Emily has helped youth to start businesses around photography, metal art, pottery, skateboard lessons, arena concessions and a very successful ice cream store – Cool Cow Ice Cream Parlour. Emily has been able to work one-on-one with local youth to develop cohesive business plans, acting as an advisor and mentor, sharing her own life experiences to inspire and guide them.

The Cool Cow Ice Cream parlour is a tool for the BYC in teaching hands on entrepreneurial skills. The students who have been enrolled in the Cool Cow program have learned human resources skills through coordinating interviews and hiring additional staff as needed. They have gained experience with financial management, inventory control, food handling, scheduling and customer service. Emily has brought in local speakers to help teach the students about topics such as liability insurance, fire safety and health regulations. The students also won a local Economic Development initiative when they presented their business plan to a panel of judges, receiving $4000 for facade improvements for their store.

We now have people approaching us to bring this same model to run concession stands for arenas and baseball fields. Everyone is taking a lot of pride in what we’re doing and this has helped bring a stronger sense of community to the town.

The Cool Cow Ice Cream Parlour has certainly had tangible results throughout the broader community of Beaverton. The building it now occupies had been vacant for seven years. Students have taken time to patch the walls, paint the interior and have improved the streetscape, taking over a side alley to build seating for their clients. This activity along the main street of Beaverton has boosted community morale, and fostered support from other local businesses who have contributed to the building makeover through donations, ranging from paint, to ice cream coolers, to skilled labour

Other store owners will often check in to make sure the kids across the road are ok. I think this project demonstrates that our youth have a value to the community and it has brought kids and adults together. I think the adults in the community have seen how much [these kids] are contributing and building a really successful thing.

Beyond the BYC, Emily continues to be involved in the community in a variety of other ways as well. Emily now sits on the Brock Economic Development Advisory Committee to council, where she can give regular updates on the efforts of the BYC and is now regarded as an important link to local youth and their needs. Emily also helps to organize a number of other community events, from Skatefest, to a local food festival, to the Canada Day planning committee. Emily was also very involved in the last federal election, volunteering her time to help with a local candidate.

More Info: Youth Engagement Showcase

The Youth Engagement Showcase has collected nominations of engaged youth, aged 29 and under, from rural communities across Ontario. Four finalists have been selected to be featured in their own short video documentary. The Youth Engagement Showcase will profile some compelling stories of youth engagement to highlight the impact these young leaders can have in their local communities and to demonstrate how rural communities of various shapes and sizes, are successfully engaging and supporting youth in addressing local challenges.