Bailey Wiley
From first business to college, income, and peer leadership.
Bailey joined YEI through MBSYEP after 8th grade. By the end of that summer, she launched Heritage Skin and vended at her first pop-up.
She stayed engaged throughout high school, later pitching and launching Nails Untamed. In her senior year, she won 3rd place in YEI’s Spring Pitch Competition, graduated from Bard High School with a 4.0 GPA and an Associate’s Degree, was accepted to Pace University to study Business, and returned to YEI as a Peer Mentor.
Exposure + entrepreneurship + sustained support.
Inspire
Bailey joined YEI and was introduced to entrepreneurship, product-making, vending, and youth business ownership.
Activate
She created products, tested business ideas, built confidence, and learned how to share her brand with customers.
Earn
Bailey vended, pitched, won business support, and continued earning through her business, Nails Untamed.
Thrive
She continued into college, studied business, and returned to YEI as a Peer Mentor for younger students.
Young people are building businesses, skills, and leadership.
Deloris
A YEI alumni, college student, business owner, and pitch winner who now helps younger students build confidence, business ideas, and financial skills.
Justus
A Bard graduate, college student, and YEI BizBeauty alumni who supports youth exploring beauty, product-making, entrepreneurship, and confidence.
Jayla
A Bard graduate, college student, and YEI BizBeauty alumni who returned as a peer mentor to support younger students in beauty entrepreneurship.
Isaac
A School Without Walls / GW student and YEI STE(A)Mprentice alumni who supports youth exploring technology, making, and creative problem-solving.
Armone
A Bard graduate, college student, and YEI Artpreneur alumni who supports students learning art, design, STEM, apparel, and creative production.
Sionna
A Bard graduate, college student, business owner, and YEI alumni who supports younger students as they begin their own creative business journeys.
YEI stories are not one-time moments. They are pathways.
Youth enter YEI through different doors — summer programs, school-year programs, KidBizCON, vending, beauty, art, STEM, travel, social enterprise, or peer mentorship. What connects their stories is the chance to learn, create, earn, lead, and keep growing.
First Ideas
Students begin with creativity, curiosity, and a business idea they may not know how to build yet.
First Products
Youth create beauty products, apparel, candles, graphics, prototypes, services, and youth-made brands.
First Customers
Students sell at pop-ups, markets, showcases, KidBizCON, and Made By Youth marketplace opportunities.
First Leadership
Youth pitch, mentor peers, lead projects, make decisions, and return to help younger students.
Confidence grows when young people get to try.
Youth stories remind us that opportunity is not abstract. It looks like a young person making their first product, talking to their first customer, earning their first dollar, pitching their first idea, and realizing they belong in rooms where decisions are made.