When Troutville Elementary School held its final school assembly last Thursday afternoon, the first item on the agenda was the presentation of two checks to the Roanoke Valley SPCA.

Those checks— over $300 total— came from Jeff Hollandsworth’s fourth graders; profits  from a manufacturing and marketing project he developed to teach students about “the real world.”

Hollandsworth’s background as a tax auditor and with the employment commission prompted the new project. He’s had students develop inventions in the past as a way to expose them to how the real world works, so moving into this new project is another method of doing the same.

This year, the fourth graders actually formed a limited liability corporation (LLC), did all the tax forms for the State Corporation Commission (SCC), the state tax department and the federal paperwork to become legitimate businesses.

With the LLC in place, the two fourth grade classes divided into two businesses— Cat Dog Inc. and LFA Inc. (Lets Feed Animals).

Students divided into accounting, manufacturing, distribution and marketing areas as in a real world business.

The students decided they wanted to have a cause for their businesses, so they selected products and talked about a benefactor. All agreed to provide profits to the SPCA for needy animals, Hollandsworth explained.

“They used a lot of ingenuity and innovation and today they get to see the results of their work with the SPCA presentation,” Hollandsworth explained from his classroom just before the school assembly and check presentations.

To get there, the students decided to make “Spirit Rocks” (Pet Rocks from back in the day, Hollandsworth said).

Students sold the rocks for $1, and the support from the school, he said, “was amazing.”

The students collected the rocks, painted and pasted designs on them, they even began taking orders and making custom Spirit Rocks as they realized that was a component of marketing that would draw more business.

The students talked about how businesses sometimes have to diversify, and they did. They made Stress Bags out of balloons for students during SOL testing, and Sock Puppets. They did mentoring and tutoring for the SOLs.

When sales slowed, they realized they could take the products to the other classrooms to boost sales, so they used a pushcart to do that. The students also developed marketing material— brochures

“What kind of surprised me was they’d use their down time— lunch, recess— to work on their projects, which told me how interested they were,” Hollandsworth said.

The LLC came with a checkbook and paychecks; plus students collected additional supplies for the SPCA.

A common theme through the school division this year has been an emphasis on working with students on “soft skills” or “C-Skills,” as the school administration calls them. In this instance, Hollandsworth said the project prompted students to collaborate, communicate and use critical thinking and ingenuity to develop the businesses and get to the point where there were funds to donate to the SPCA.

“Those soft skills are so important to learn at this age,” Hollandsworth said.

During the school assembly, the officers from each of the two companies presented the checks to Corey Ramsey from the SPCA.