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Rachel Diers, Maria Harald, and Matt Stamos, students from Chisago Lakes High School, recently received scholarship support from Community National Bank, Initiative Foundation and Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corporation to attend BestPrep's Minnesota Business Venture (MBV), a summer education program focused on career planning and financial literacy. More than 140 generous sponsors donated funds to support students' attendance.

The program, in partnership with the G.R. Herberger College of Business at St. Cloud State University and the Donald McNeely Center for Entrepreneurship at St. John's University, included 397 Minnesota high school students from 124 schools. The program focused on important business components-starting a business, financial literacy, teamwork and collaboration. Teens and young adults now make up the largest segment of America's labor force.

"I learned so much this past week at MBV. This program creates real life situations for you to deal with and makes the learning experience fun! I learned how to work with a team on creating a product and it was very realistic!" said Diers.

While attending Minnesota Business Venture, students learned how to write a business plan, interview for a job and begin investing. Nearly 200 Minnesota entrepreneurs and executives volunteered to share their experiences and business prowess with the future workforce. BestPrep has offered Minnesota Business Venture for 30 years, and has more than 9,700 program alumni. In addition to MBV, BestPrep offers four other innovative programs: Classroom Plus, eMentors, The Stock Market Gameä and the Technology Integration Workshop.

For more information about BestPrep, MBV 2010 or MBV 2011, please visit the website at www.bestprep.org or call 763-398-0090.

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