Established in 2018 and designed around bringing people and ideas together to create local entrepreneurial ventures, the Jesuit High School Sacramento Entrepreneur’s Club offers a multitude of tools and resources so that students may access the world of business opportunities.

The President of the Entrepreneur’s Club, James Irwin ’22, is working to revitalize the club as it tries to rebound from the lack of activity that resulted from the COVID pandemic. Faculty Moderator Dr. Fadia Desmond notices the work James is doing that is necessary to rejuvenate the club.

“James had to deal with last year, where he had limited opportunities for his club members, and then starting this school year it’s almost like starting a brand new club because we have to now re-engage students and do all the programming,” Dr. Desmond said. “That is a lot to accomplish.”

Regardless of the struggles that the Entrepreneur’s Club has faced, it has created a senior sweatshirt and has done all the marketing in-house, at Jesuit. James states the process of making and distributing the senior sweatshirt.

“Our main project this year is the senior sweatshirt, which we just launched and just finished selling on Nov. 1,” James said. “We worked with an independent manufacturer and got the senior sweatshirts made. We designed it, we made it. We did the marketing for the sweatshirt at the school and we are selling it, and then we are going to distribute it to the students.” 

The speaking events are also a large part of the Entrepreneur’s Club offerings of experience and knowledge. James notes the goals and advantages that bringing in guest speakers induces. 

“What we try to do is bring alumni of Jesuit and also entrepreneurs within the greater Sacramento area to come to campus,” James said. “Men and women alike come to campus and speak about their entrepreneurship and the projects that they’ve worked on and they give us some advice and then we implement that advice through our own projects.”

An active member of the Entrepreneur’s Club, Matthew Bata ’22, is hopeful that the club will return to what it once was. His goals and hopes for the club are optimistic.  

“My goal is to increase club involvement,” Matthew said. “Over the pandemic, we lost a lot of members, but we just want to get more people in the room, we want to see more people involved. That means coming to speaker events and participating in the competitions. The ultimate goal of this year for us is to just gain the membership back that the club once had.” 

With a larger outreach, James is able to bring more fresh ideas to the table. The senior sweatshirt is not the only project that the Entrepreneur’s Club has on the planner for this year. James is going to keep bringing new ideas and projects for his club members and continue to teach them and create entrepreneurs of the future.