During these summer weeks my Girls Who Code Students have graduated the school year and moving on to bigger and better things. I am proud of all of them and even hope to cross paths with them again one day. With that being said I now have more free time to focus on one of my other hobbies, entrepreneurship.

I was looking for volunteer opportunities in my area and came across one that was definitely unique from the rest. First impressions are that I have never seen a volunteer opportunity that had anything to do with entrepreneurship skills. Most volunteer opportunities that I see involve serving food to the homeless, volunteering at a children’s hospital, tutoring at a school, etc. With most of these, I have learned skills that I also apply with my job now. I enjoyed every volunteer position I ever took and each one has taught me something different or added on to shaping my character. I say that because if you are thinking about volunteering know that you can try out multiple! Just be careful not to try and do them all at once, I know how exciting! but overwhelming that can be.

The SCORE volunteer position from my understanding is a group of people who are willing to mentor small business owners. Now everyone does not have experience in mentoring, let alone how to mentor a business owner in that case, you yourself will receive a mentor to teach you how to do it. I think an awesome aspect of this is that most people, if not all the mentors actually have a self-started business as well. The mentors are speaking from experience and dealing with the current market themselves. Also for people who don’t have the experience to mentor a buisness you can use your hobbies and skills to help these businesses as well. For example, anyone who wouldn’t mind fixing a church’s computer for free could offer some services for them for a problem that could’ve been more costly and time-consuming. SCORE is a non-profit organization whose mission is to help those with small businesses. It also says on their website that they are partnered with SBA, the Small Business Association.

I am writing this to inform more people about this opportunity and if it is something that interests them, I dare them to take a chance and make a difference in their small business community.