Nunavik students launch new business, and take it on the road

A group of 10 students from Inukjuak help to run the Old Rock Café at Innalik school. The students recently travelled to Montreal to take part in a student entrepreneurship competition. Pictured here: Siupik Smiler Irqumia, Leo-Paul Ohaituk, Patrick Moorhouse, Tommy Annanack Lacasse, Aloupa Epoo, Ricky Nayoumealuk, Nunaruaq Elijassialuk , Martha Sarah Dow, Amaruq Rousseau, Josie Napartuk, Véronique Martin, Jordyn Stafford and Emily Boytinck. (PHOTO COURTESY OF YOUTH FUSION)

Tommy Annanack Lacasse, with his hand in a bag of flour, and Amaruq Rousseau behind him in a yellow apron, work at the Old Rock Café, based out of the kitchen at Innalik school in Inukjuak. (PHOTO COURTESY OF YOUTH FUSION)

Launching a business could be a daunting task for some youth, but for a group of high school students in Inukjuak, it’s become their bread and butter.

A group students in Secondary 3, 4 and 5 (Grades 9, 10 and 11) from Innalik school were celebrated last month for their efforts in running a school-based bakery called the Old Rock Café.

Students bake their own bread and make desserts like cupcakes, banana bread and lemon squares, which they’ve sold to their classmates and teachers out of the school kitchen. They’ve also catered events.

The Old Rock Café grew from a call-out for a Quebec entrepreneurship competition.

“We heard about this entrepreneurship competition and we started brainstorming ideas,” said Amaruq Rousseau, 16, a Secondary 4 student at Innalik.

“All the bread here isn’t fresh—we have to order it in,” he said. “So we thought of the idea of a bakery. We’re the only business that offers fresh bread in the community.”

The students had help and support from Emily Boytinck, a leadership and entrepreneurship coordinator with Youth Fusion. That organization runs programming in Quebec schools to help build self-esteem, engagement and employability among students.

The group of students decided to name the bakery the Old Rock Café—a riff on the famed Hard Rock, but also a reference to the volcanic rock found in the region, which is thought to be among the oldest in the world, at an estimated 3.82 billion years old.

“We opened the café once to the community. It went really well,” Rousseau said. “We made almost $600.”

The café is mostly closed now as the school year winds down, but the group hopes to open it up to the community more often next year.

Students had a chance to show off their work and compete with other student-run enterprises at an entrepreneurship competition hosted last month in Montreal.

The Innalik students were among 30 different groups of students who took part in Youth Fusion’s Education of the Future festival May 14 to May 17, and the only group from Nunavik.

Many of the competitors didn’t realize the extra challenges that come with running a business in a remote and northern region, Rousseau said.

“When we were presenting our café to the judges, one of them told us we should open our café to other communities,” Rousseau said, noting the judge didn’t realize Nunavik communities are only connected by air.

Work and competition aside, Rousseau called the Montreal event “one of the best times I’ve ever had.”

The Old Rock Café group even won the event’s Community Involvement Award.

“These guys did a phenomenal job of presenting their project to the judges,” Boytinck said. “For some of [the competitors] it was their first time hearing about the reality of the North.”

“Unlike other schools, Innalik is deeply involved in the community,” she said. “This initiative can really reach other members of the community.”