Quarantine Businesses
Ana Pau Odriozola
10 months ago everyone stopped going out due to COVID . Since everyone was in lockdown many people lost their jobs which meant that they couldn ’ t pay for basic necessities such as school for their children , electricity , or meals . While the adults were trying to figure things out , some teenagers from ASFM started thinking of ways to earn money . Some people started selling skincare products , cookies , makeup , stickers , brownies , and jewelry among other things . Seeing how we are stuck in our houses all day long , people started to get bored pretty fast , they decided to do something out of that . This helped students become more financially independent . Many of them are very creative ; for example , there are two ASFM students who paint and draw and they are able to make stickers out of their art . Some of them are excellent chefs who can bake sweets that taste very good . I interviewed some people who started their small businesses during quarantine or who had their small business before march 2020 but grew during quarantine and this is what they said .
11th grade ASFM students Vale Lobo and Vale Villareal work together in a business called unbaked . mty and mentioned that they started this since they were young in order to gain money on their own , but they always knew they wanted to have a business , so they both decided to start it together right now . “ We started planning everything in summer of 2020 and officially opened it in September 2020 , Quarantine helped me come up with this idea and it gave me a lot of time to work on it . ” - Vale Lobo . “ My motivation was quarantine because at first I had a lot of free time specially during the summer and I felt like I should be doing something productive ... I chose to do this because when I was little I loved eating cookie dough before it was cooked but I always knew it was dangerous so we came up with the idea of 100 % edible cookie dough which contains no eggs and has heat treated flour .” ( Vale Lobo ).
Another person I interviewed is a 12th grader in ASFM named Paola Zambrano has a business of brownies . Her business is called positivejar . mty . “ The truth is there wasn ’ t an actual reason , I was bored at home , and as I was looking through pinterest I found these red velvet brownies , and I just decided to make them to pass the time . The next day I took them to school to share with friends , yet people started asking how much my brownies cost . And that ' s the story of how I joined the black market at school . However , I started liking this idea of being more independent from my parents , so I continued , yet the red velvet brownies evolved into regular brownies ! The actual business positive . jar started when I was in 10th grade after one of my friends , Luisa Farias asked me to join her at the christmas bazaar for destellos de luz . My motivation after that , apart from the independence is being able to use my business platform to help others , weather that is donating my months savings to the Cruz Roja and donating brownies at their annual lottery , or being able to help out student groups from school by donating positive . jar as one of the prizes at their raffles . Positive . jar is also a huge part of my shoe campaign ( this year laptops ) with Dividendo de Generosidad . Along the way different people have helped me . For instance , if it wasn ’ t for Luisa , I would have never gotten the incentive to actually brand my brownies . And when the time came , my mom has always been supportive . At the start she bought the materials for me , she insisted it was a personal investment , yet I knew she just felt bad for me . Fernanda Guajardo helped me in creating the logo for my business . Either way , it all worked out , and after a couple of weeks I was on my own two feet . Quarantine helped , because now I was actually at my house to bake . I have always been a person who loves to do everything , and so I would get home very late in the day , and would usually stay up till 1-2 getting ready for the next day ' s orders . With quarantine , I can bake in between classes , and my schedule is just way better .” To conclude , this quarantine local businesses has helped many ASFM students achieve their goals in making their own money by doing things they enjoy !
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