Kenzleigh Torres is a business owner, entrepreneur, and consultant. She’s also in fifth grade.
In an age where children are increasingly divorced from reality via screens – and where society allows them less and less autonomy – Torres and her mom, Kandiss, are forging a new path for industrious kids who are looking to bring their ideas to life.
Kenzleigh’s business, a flower and body care shop called “The Vintage Violet,” is associated with the Libertas Network’s Kids Markets. Their mission — “To ignite the entrepreneurial spirit in kids by giving them real opportunities to create, sell, and succeed” — gets to the heart of what so many children are lacking today: an opportunity to learn life skills by actually doing them.
“Kids Markets allows you to take a passion or a hobby and turn it into something that could legitimately change your life,” Kandiss told IW Features. “The idea truly is that entrepreneurship is for everyone. You can start something from nothing, and you can grow into something big and incredible, and that can start when you’re eight years old.”
Kenzleigh herself opened her business at eight years old and said that being a shop owner has made her more future-oriented and taught her valuable skills.
“I’ve learned how to garden and take care of my plants, how to give them water and food. And a big, big lesson I’ve learned is money handling,” Kenzleigh said. “When I first started, I just wanted to go spend money right away. As I’ve gotten more used to it, I have learned what to spend and what to put away for saving.”
Kids Markets participation gives parents an opportunity to have important conversations with their children about financial literacy, and according to Kandiss, even she’s even learned a thing or two along the way.
“When you sign up for your first market, you get a free curriculum that walks you through starting a small business and explains things like ROI and KPI, which I didn’t know anything about a few years ago,” Kandiss said. “Kenzleigh put $500 away in a Roth IRA so that she’ll have money set aside to build her future. We sat down with her and we talked about how much to invest in her business and how much to set aside to grow her wealth long term.”
Beyond the entrepreneurial and financial skills that kids learn through business ownership, Kandiss said that Kids Markets provides an alternative activity for children who struggle in more traditional activities, like sports.
“Kids Markets opens a whole world of opportunity for kids who are naturally very intelligent, very self-motivated and self-driven,” she said. “They can come and make literally anything, from scrunchies to crochet.”
Kenzleigh said that running The Vintage Violet helped her through her diagnosis with loose joints.
“One of my biggest dreams of being a professional gymnast was taken away,” she said. “It was really exciting to know that I had something else that I could do that wouldn’t put me in harm’s way.”
Kenzleigh has also grown in confidence and developed interpersonal skills since starting her business, Kandiss said.
“She’s always been an outgoing kid, but there’s something different about having to pitch yourself to people,” she said. “Now she’s the one at markets giving other kids advice. It’s been really cool to see her go through that transition from being nervous and not knowing how to explain herself to people, to being like, ‘Mom, don’t say a word,’ which is a big Kids Market rule.”
Ultimately, the skills that Kenzleigh and the other 78,400 youth entrepreneurs are learning through Kids Markets are not only useful but are also deeply American. By pursuing economic opportunity, they are enriching their local economies and tapping into the free market legacy established by the Founders.
“I really do believe that America was built on small businesses,” Kandiss said. “I think we have to get back to our roots.”
