From the Classroom to the Community: Millwood Junior Launches Business Expo

Jeremiah Hogan is a junior at Millwood high school. He’s four-point student, captain of the football and baseball teams and he scored a 25 on the ACT, and with all of that, this weekend he’s planning something even more impressive.

“I’m in the multicultural club which took me to Paris and London last year,” said Millwood Junior, Jeremiah Hogan.

Somewhere between scoring points, dominating the classroom, or traveling the world he’s also involved with a group called Kidvation, solving real problems for real businesses.

“And I kind of noticed like a common denominator was exposure. Most of the small businesses, they didn’t get enough exposure,” said Hogan.

It didn’t take long for him to come up with a solution to this problem.

“Idea just popped into my head, what if we did a small business expo here at the school,” said Hogan.

He pitched the idea to Kidvation co-founder Harold Lee and Millwood superintendent Dr. Cecilia Robinson-Woods, and they loved it. They Hogan the support and the green light to move forward.

“I just kept emailing, emailing, sent out flyers,” said Hogan.

And his hard work eventually paid off, as this Saturday from 9 am to 2 pm local minority businesses, even kid businesses will set up and showcase their products at Millwood high school

“Small businesses are the foundation of our economy, and that really stuck with me,” said Hogan.

There are over forty businesses signed up for the expo, businesses like Lorraine’s Collections.

“I received a text message from Jeremiah asking me if I would be interested in putting my business in the expo,” said Greta Cobb, owner of Lorraine’s Creations.

“So, my company is called Beyond Budget and what we teach is financial literacy,” said Brittany Driver, owner of Beyond Budget.

Both companies super impressed with Hogan’s ambition

“Amazing. Amazing,” said Driver.

From the start, it was all about helping the businesses succeed

“How did this expo help them, did their brand grow, did their income grow,” said Hogan.

He has one message for those attending this Saturday.

Bring some money, bring some money,” said Hogan.

The Expo is Saturday from 9 to 2, at Millwood High School.