Children and youth set up shop in Galeries Aylmer for “La Grande journée des Petits Entrepreneurs”

Greg Newing

Over 30 children set up tables to sell homemade products at the Galeries Aylmer for “La Grande journée des Petits Entrepreneurs” on Saturday, June 3.

“La Grande journée des Petits Entrepreneurs” is an annual Quebec-wide event that helps young people learn about starting a business by setting up shops in local “petit entrepreneur” markets. This year, there were about 180 markets set up across the province with approximately 8,000 participants. Four of these markets were set up in Gatineau at Galeries Aylmer, Galeries Hull, La Ferme Moore and Encan Larose in Masson, and around 200 petit entrepreneur businesses participated.

This is the third year that La Grande journée des Petits Entrepreneurs has been held in Aylmer and participation has been growing steadily, from 20 businesses in 2021, to 34 this year. Aylmer’s petit entrepreneur market is supported locally by the Association des professionnels, industriels et commerçants d'Aylmer (APICA) and Galeries Aylmer. While the market was held outside the Galeries in previous years, it was moved inside this year to attract more foot traffic from people already shopping in the mall.

“The project aims to encourage children to explore entrepreneurship later in life. They get a chance to explore the entrepreneurship world and learn how they can become a business owner,” said event organizer Mylène Deneault. She noted that while the event encourages children to take initiative, setting up the businesses is often a family effort, “The businesses are the kids’ initiatives, but we also see parents’ and sometimes grandparents’ support. It is so nice to see the older generations sharing their knowledge with the younger generation at this event.”

Maya and Jacob, who named their business “Mini Vachon”, sold hand-painted greeting cards and bookmarks. Maya said that she learned the painting technique from her grandmother. She was then inspired to start her own shop after going to local markets with her mother who also runs a business selling homemade products.

Naya Toure, who is 8 years old, came up with the idea of selling homemade hibiscus fruit juice and popsicles after trying the juice at home. “My company is called Hibissap. The hibiscus flower comes from Guinea; we dry it and boil it and then mix it with other tropical juices. Since I was much smaller, my father would come home with hibiscus juice, and I really loved it. I was interested in starting a business.”

Kevin Jefferson and Jakob Ross came up with an innovative idea to collect and sell lost golf balls that were accumulating near golf courses. Siblings Aya and Walid Belaid sold resin keychains after experimenting with different methods for making them, “We tried to make keychains from other material after reading instructions online.  When that did not work, we had the idea to try with resin.  We made some mistakes figuring it out, and were stuck for some time, but we learned and improved and now we are making and selling them together,” said Aya. 

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Photo caption: Naya Toure (left) with her mother Florence Toure (right) selling “Hibissap” Guinean hibiscus juice and popsicles.
Photo credit:  Greg Newing

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Photo caption: Maya and Jacob Vachon selling homemade cards, bookmarks and other crafts.

Photo credit: Greg Newing

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Photo caption: Kevin Jefferson (right) and Jakob Ross (left) selling golf balls at “La Grande journée des Petits Entrepreneurs”.

Photo credit: Greg Newing

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Photo caption: Aya and Walid Belaid selling bracelets and keychains made with resin.

Photo credit: Greg Newing