Rider Expands Outreach Program to Middlesex County School

Minding Our Business (M.O.B.), a community outreach project organized by the College of Business Administration at Rider University, has expanded with a pilot program at a middle school in Perth Amboy, N.J.

Dr. Sigfredo Hernandez, M.O.B. founder and associate professor of Marketing at Rider, said he expects 30 seventh- and eighth- grade students from William C. McGinnis Middle School and its alternative school to participate. The pilot program will operate similarly to the current M.O.B. model.

M.O.B., which offers spring, summer and advanced programs, enables Trenton youth to learn how to start and run their own businesses under the mentorship of Rider University students. At the conclusion of the programs, middle school students sell their wares at market fairs.

“I applaud Rider University for helping our students learn key skills that will make a significant difference in their lives for years to come,” said Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz. “This program offers exciting challenges for our future entrepreneurs and we’re glad to have the Minding Our Business program in Perth Amboy.”

The pilot program will include teams of middle school students and student mentors. Students participating in the Bonner Leaders program at Middlesex County College will be trained by the M.O.B. staff. In April 2009, the McGinnis students and their mentors will join forces with the rest of the M.O.B. partner schools during the spring market fair, which will be held at Patton J. Hill Elementary School in Trenton.

Ana Mascenik, principal at McGinnis Middle School, said M.O.B. is an excellent venue for developing project-based learning.

“When children learn through projects, they are highly motivated, they must apply learned skills to real-world situations and they make connections between different content-area skills, ensuring that those skills are retained,” Mascenik explained. “This project also provides mentors and role models who are attending college to our students.”

Since its inception in 1997, M.O.B. has trained and mentored more than 1,300 Trenton middle school students, ages 11 to 14, and has expanded to include student mentors from The College of New Jersey’s Bonner Scholars Program.

For more information, please call Dr. Sigfredo A. Hernandez at 609-895-5509, or e-mail hernandez@rider.edu. To find out more about the M.O.B. program, please visit http://www.rider.edu/172_798.htm.

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