In front of hundreds of business leaders on Friday May 18, Rebecca Zerbo, a 7th grader at Eagles Landing Middle School student was honored by the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce at the beginning of the Chamber’s annual Business Awards Luncheon that will be honoring Florida Atlantic University (Business of the Year), Rick Konsavage (Business Leader of the Year), and Jason Doherty (Small Business Leader of the Year).
As a participant in the Chamber’s Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) she was selected out of her 24-student YEA! Class to compete in the national YEA! Bright Ideas Competition in Rochester this month and won the national title. She earned a $30,000 scholarship and a trip to Washington DC to attend the U.S. Chamber’s Small Business Summit next week to be recognized by business and community leaders from all over the United States. Rebecca’s business, Positive Pocket, began as an anti-bullying campaign and has now grown to be an award-winning business. To learn more about her business, visit www.positivepocket.org.
The Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce is the first and only chamber in Florida participating in the national YEA! Program to inspire area students in grades 6-12. Rebecca’s enthusiasm and dedication, along with that of all the students in the inaugural class, is a testament to the power and potential of a good idea when combined with a great deal of hard work and support from community volunteers, business leaders and other local entrepreneurs. With this amount of strong leadership and intellectual capital, Boca Raton has just the right fertile soil to support an idea like Positive Pocket and nurture it to national recognition and success. YEA! was founded in 2004 at the University of Rochester and is a partner with the United States Chamber of Commerce and its Campaign for Free Enterprise. The commitment to this initiative falls in direct alignment with the Chamber’s mission of economic and community development and supports the long-standing spirit of entrepreneurialism that existed in in Boca Raton since the creation of the personal compeer at IBM in 1981.
The Boca Raton Tribune will have a special one-on-one interview with Rebecca in the next week’s edition. Stay tuned for that.