Urban Learning through Granola Bars, Library Books, and a Fruit Stand

Once a week from January through mid-May, Penn rising juniors Jodi Marcus, Adam Ginsberg, and Leopold Spohngellert made granola bars with a team of middle and high school students at the Dorrance H. Hamilton Center for Culinary Enterprises at 46th and Market streets.  

The group baked the product, worked to secure funding, sold and marketed the bars—everything required of a real business. Because despite the group’s student makeup and classroom origins, it is a real business, called Rebel Ventures, with an aim to provide nutritious light snacks where such choices aren’t readily accessible.  

“A lot of [Philadelphia] students don’t have healthy snack options. There are a lot of chips, colored water, pretzels,” says Janeé Franklin, coordinator of Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) at the Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships. “Rebel Ventures was an opportunity for students to not only learn business skills, but to actually try to supply a healthy alternative [snack option] in their neighborhoods.”

Click here to read the full article and watch the video from Penn News.