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High School Students Collaborate On Project To Better Baltimore

BALTIMORE (WJZ)--Making history and a difference, that's what a group of high school students and a partnership between two school districts are trying to achieve with an entrepreneurship class.

Marcus Washington has more on the program's mission.

For this group of high school students it's all about the business.

The purpose for each one of these groups made up of students from Howard County schools and Baltimore City's Patterson High School create a business plan that will benefit the people of Baltimore.

Students in Howard County's entrepreneurship class saw what was happening in Baltimore during the unrest of April 2015, deciding their senior project would focus on business plans, and they'd use Baltimore as their focus location.

"So I was talking to the Maryland Council for Economic Education about that and executive director Mary Ann Hewitt recommended that I connect with a school here in Baltimore," said Maddy Halbach, a student at Howard County schools.

"We don't have these [types] of opportunities to do this with other counties and what I'm doing is a soup truck organization. I am one of the non-profits," said Shontae Hughes, a junior at Baltimore City Schools.

Out of the six groups, five are non-profit, benefiting through recreation, education and food programs. For the for profit program, it's not necessarily about making a profit.

"We found that payday loan companies charge, on average, about 300% interest rates on their loans. We thought that was just outrageous. So, we wanted to offer an alternative that was ethical," said Austin Adamczyk, senior at Howard County schools.

While this is just a class, the students are using real life problems and focusing on, and seeing ways to improve a city.

Kelley Bagdasarian, academic coach at Patterson High School says, "They get to hear different perspectives, a different type of student; both working on the same goal, which is to better Baltimore City."

Tuesday was just the second meeting for those students, they have been working on these projects since November.

The students will compete in a state wide competition in April where they could win cash prizes.,

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