Farmington · Franklin County · Maine

Youth building businesses. Communities building futures.

We're a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in rural western Maine. Young people ages 10 to 24 run a real store, build in a real makerspace, and grow real food — and find out, by doing it, what they're good at.

Become a Changemaker Sponsor a youth Visit the store

Two young people in CES T-shirts behind the counter of the CES store on Main Street, hand-blown glass ornaments hanging above them.

Today · 156 Main Street

The Center for Entrepreneurial Studies cooperative store sign hanging outside 156 Main Street.

The sign out front · 156 Main

Impact snapshot

Small town. Real numbers.

Six years on Main Street — through a pandemic that shut us down fourteen days after we took the space, before we'd officially opened. Here's where that got us.

10–24 Ages we serve

Young people come to us at different stages — some at ten, some in their twenties — and many come back years later to keep building.

1^st WIOA worksite in Franklin County

The first site in the county to put federal workforce dollars straight into youth work experience.

0 Young people served

Six years of Changemakers — 193 young people who ran a register, made a product, or built something that lasted.

0 Acres on Whittier Road

Gardens and a tiny home there now. A marketplace, teaching kitchen and campus next.

What happens here

Four teams. All of them real work.

This isn't a classroom. Young people pick a workforce team, learn the job from people who do it for a living, and answer to actual customers.

All programs

Laser-cut wooden ornaments shaped like the state of Maine, each with a heart burned into it.

Manufacturing & Product Development

Laser engraving, 3D printing, prototyping, branding. Ideas become inventory on our own shelves.

Explore

Raised garden beds and a metal trellis on the CES land at Whittier Road.

Agriculture & Culinary Enterprise

Gardens, the farmstand, canning and food prep. Growing it, making it, and selling it at market.

Explore

A crew laying paver stones at the Whittier Road campus on a clear day.

Outdoor Services & Property Operations

Landscaping, repair, seasonal cleanup, tool safety. A first look at the trades, with a real customer waiting.

Explore

A young person stocking a display of products at the CES store counter.

Retail, Media & Professional Services

Customer service, merchandising, photography, social. The store is the classroom and the register doesn't lie.

Explore

Changemaker stories

Ask them yourself.

Most young people arrive here because another young person told them to. These are a few of them, in their own words.

All stories

Rosie · in her own words

Watch Rosie.

Two minutes with a Changemaker on why this place is different from school and what she'd tell any young person thinking about trying it.

Sophie · joined at 14

She showed up with earrings in a Ziploc bag.

No logo. No business plan. No idea what came next. With help from mentors and her peers she built a brand, priced her work, and sold it — to classmates, to college students, and to local pediatricians who bought in bulk to engage children during appointments. One December, she cleared $900.

Then she started teaching the younger ones. That part matters more than the money.

Read Sophie's story

Come by.

The store is open year round. Around it, the calendar runs on Franklin County time — plant sale in spring, field day in summer, Chester Greenwood in winter.

Full calendar

Summer 2026 Youth-led pop-up shops Changemakers take their products out to markets and community events across the region. Details Growing season Whittier Road farmstand What the Agriculture & Culinary team grows, sold by the people who grew it. Details

We have a responsibility not just to meet their basic needs, but to help them build a future. Through the lens of entrepreneurship, we can offer not just shelter, but purpose, dignity, and a path forward.