Community Futures Central Alberta is pleased to sponsor youth from our region to attend the Rotary Alberta Youth Entrepreneurship Camp (RAYEC). (RAYEC) is a one week business planning camp for youth aged 13-15 designed to improve business, academic and life skills through entrepreneurship.
Held at Eagles Nest Ranch in the Cypress Hills, Alberta, this one week entrepreneurial-based camp combines the education of business training with a summer camp atmosphere. Campers hear from guest speakers and participate in workshops to learn the components of a business plan such as marketing, advertising, cash flow and record keeping. Youth are put into business teams where they plan a business idea, meet with suppliers and bankers, build a product and on the final day of camp these youthful business ventures are showcased for parents during business day. Campers pay back their business loans and split their profits amongst their business team.
Below is text from an interview with one of the 2025 campers - Sage Pasman of Red Deer (seated bottom right) and Community Futures. It has been edited for length.
Hello Sage, was this your first time at camp?
No, it was my second year. Second time.
What were the top three things about camp this year?
The activities there, all the rec activities I would get are cool such as, paintball was so much fun and ziplining was always a lot of fun. Also meeting the people like you. Get to meet all new friends there, which is so great, absolutely, especially ones that are interested in stuff like you are.
Anything else?
Just getting to learn about all the business stuff, which is super helpful in life. All the meetings that they have with us, when we have all the different speakers come up on stage to teach us about their experiences and stuff. It's really cool and helpful.
Yeah, so you mentioned the other people there, can you can give me just a little description of what the other kids were like?
Yeah, they were all pretty interested in the camp. We had a lot of new campers this year, so they didn't really know what they were gonna do, but they were all super excited to get there and meet new friends and people and just like, see what the camp was all about. I feel like our whole team, honestly, just took in really good ideas that were super helpful.
What was your team's business idea?
We made charcuterie boards and candles, and then we made customized coasters too. So we had a wood burner on site when we were selling our products, so then we could customize people's posters of how they wanted them. We had all of the boards pre-made because we had to put a food safe sealant on it. So we had to make them prior to the days, but we still put a stain on them and a wood burn. So they had cool designs.
Did anything funny happen while you were at camp?
Super funny talent show. There's two guys at camp that sing like 'girl songs' every year together. Always a really good part. They sang music from Grease and they had wigs on, and they like wrapped up as Sandy and then the other guy.
Did you like the actual facility and the place it was located?
Yeah, I like how it's pretty far out, and how there's no cell service. It's really nice, just getting away from our phone, which is normally really difficult to do.
I'm guessing, just from what you've described, that you would go back if you had the chance?
Yeah, definitely.
What would you tell other kids about the camp if they had never heard of it before?
That it is just like a super fun camp where you get to learn good things that you can put forward the rest of your life, and you meet a lot of cool people there. It's definitely scary to go to camp with people that you don't know, but it's honestly so much fun. You really just got to give it an opportunity.
Are you interested in starting a business one day?
Yeah, maybe one day, I think that it's just a cool thing to learn if you were thinking about ever starting a business, and we could really figure out what it's all like and the struggles, but then also the good parts of it.
