Plan on track for entrepreneur center
By Bart Mills | Thursday, February 26, 2009

From The Lima News:

LIMA - Organizers of this year's Community Enrichment Dinner are hoping to use one man's success story to promote others.

This year's dinner, slated for April 2 at Veterans Memorial Civic Center, will feature former U.S. Rep. and former National Association for the Advancement of Colored People leader Kweisi Mfume, a man who didn't get a general equivalency diploma until he was 23, but went on to two college degrees and five terms in the U.S. House.

Money raised from the $50 a plate dinner will go to support the Walter C. Potts Entrepreneur and Training Center. Namesake Walter Potts said he hopes to have the Center running by May when they will move into the Schnorf Hardware building, being renovated to house the Lima Allen County Chamber of Commerce and other economic development groups. From there, it will be on to their mission to train the next generation of business owners and workers.

"We're going to do something in Lima I think is going to revolutionize things, especially for our younger folks," Potts said.

That revolution will include training and mentoring people hoping to start their own business as well as training workers for the ever-changing job market

"We're going to change the methods of how we approach the job market," Potts said. "We're trying to get a feel right now for what it is we can do for this community."

The idea for an entrepreneur center has been kicking around Lima since at least 1996. Bluffton opened its own center earlier this year, but it was just about three years ago that local businessman Jerome O'Neal and Perry Township Trustee Frank Lamar joined with Potts to launch the Lima center. O'Neal said Wednesday he believes the project would create new opportunities for the entire community.

"We can grow Lima from the inside out. We can be our own opportunity," O'Neal said.

View article at The Lima News