TASTE OF IMMOKALEE ANNOUNCES
Taste the Impact
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Newly Formed Nonprofit, Taste the Impact, Fuels Youth Entrepreneurship Program Behind Taste of Immokalee
The success of our benefit corporation, Taste of Immokalee, has created an increased demand for youths wanting to enter our entrepreneurship program. The nonprofit Taste the Impact was launched in 2019 to enable the additional funding needed to grow the entrepreneurship program, which uniquely provides high school students with the hands-on business experience and soft skills that cannot be taught in a classroom environment. Our students are working in all areas of business and earning professional certifications, including credentials from the Florida Ready to Work program.
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OUR PROGRAM
Igniting Dreams, Changing Communities
The Program
We provide entrepreneurship training and hands-on business experience to equip high school students with the skills they need for college and career success.
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The Products
Students gain real business experience using local resources to create and sell products; 100% of profits fuel our program and aid the community.
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The Impact
Our students become career-ready with the knowledge, skills and experience needed to succeed; they are thriving in college and in the workforce.
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HOW WE ARE
Breaking the Cycle of Poverty
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Immokalee, Florida is home to migrant farm-working families, including many of our students, who labor in the scorching fields, picking tomatoes and other produce. Without access to resources or role models, our youth become trapped in this multi-generational cycle of poverty, unable to imagine a future beyond field work.
Taste the Impact opens a new world of opportunity, exposes students to professional career paths, and equips them with the skills and experiences needed to be successful in school and in today's workforce. Their success also means a greater ability to give back and create positive change in their hometown of Immokalee. |
(Credit: AP Photo / Luis M. Alvarez)
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THE IMPACT
Meet Alfredo
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Alfredo Villalobos Perez recalls his life as a migrant farm working student and the struggles that often become insurmountable. As his family traveled with the seasons in search of work, he would have to switch schools up to four times every year. With constant change, uncertainty, failing grades and the inability to see any kind of future beyond field work, it's a cycle that too often suppresses the great potential in our youth.
The entrepreneurship program behind Taste of Immokalee gave Alfredo the confidence, skills and experience he needed to break that cycle. He is now a first-generation college graduate and part of a premed research program at the National Institutes of Health. Alfredo is just one of many examples of young lives being transformed through Taste the Impact. |
Watch Alfredo's inspiring story in this 15-minute video, From Tomato Fields to Premed.
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