Fenway Ventures is a program for 11^th and 12^th grade students that helps to develop the communication and entrepreneurial skills they need to be successful in the modern world. Ventures encourages students to learn and practice these skills while they investigate how to turn their ideas into “real world” businesses and service organizations.

Students are expected to develop initiative, resourcefulness, communication and problem-solving skills, respect for others, self-discipline and self-confidence; understand and be able to use basic business and entrepreneurial concepts (e.g., “bottom line”), methodologies (e.g., market research) and tools (e.g., cold calls and letters); to learn to network with entrepreneurs and community agencies and to build relationships that provide mentoring, resources and opportunities for creating new ways to work and new sources of income.

Students are supported by community entrepreneurs and agencies with interviews, job shadows, internships, training and consulting, mentoring, business and market information, feedback on student plans and proposals and funding.  Students give back to the community with new understanding and respect for local businesses, involvement in community activities, development of student-run community enterprises and entrepreneurship mentoring for younger students.

The eleventh grade component of the Ventures Program is designed to heighten students’ awareness and understanding of current events and to guide them through the process of developing business plans to support non-profit organizations.  Students integrate school-based and discovery-based learning by examining and discussing opposing views on current events such as the war with Iraq, race relations in America, racial profiling, affirmative action, Roe vs. Wade and the death penalty for juveniles.

Through the analytic examination of these issues, students intellectually develop enlightened perspectives, which they present in position papers.  These papers become the catalyst for developing business proposals for non-profit organizations to support and advance their positions.  During the research phase of non-profit organization development, students are exposed to a diverse group of speakers from grass roots organizations that provide the history and evolution of their non-profit organizations.

Next, students work collaboratively on proposals for the creation of non-profit organizations offering services to children or teens. Students make a presentation of their proposal to a panel of judges consisting of grass roots organizers, community activists, parents, teachers and their peers. 

The Ventures Senior Internship Program is a unique and extraordinary opportunity for seniors to integrate school-based learning with career exploration and practical work-site experience in a six-week, full-time, unpaid internship in the fields students wish to pursue after graduation.  The academic year is compressed into seven months to accommodate the internship requirement.

The internship experience gives students an insider’s view of professions and serves to solidify their desire to work in specific fields or results in the re-examination of career paths.  Ultimately, this experience tests the academic and interpersonal skills, and levels of maturity as they venture beyond the comfort and safety of the Fenway High School community into the world of work.

Organizations that have provided internship placements include: