Elmont businesses believe students in the Sewanhaka Central High School District could provide important answers on how to spark investment in Elmont.
Under Invest in Elmont, a program now in its second year, the businesses award an annual scholarship to high school juniors or seniors who comes up with the best proposal to bring investment to Elmont.
The brainchild of Elmont businessmen Muzzio Tallini and Carl Achille, Invest in Elmont has been expanded beyond Elmont Memorial High School and Sewanhaka High School this year to enable students throughout the district to apply. The program is also open to college students who reside in the area.
The original concept behind Invest in Elmont, Tallini said, was to get students “to think about the real world, and get their eyes away from iPhones.”
He said he also aimed to stem the tide of the “brain drain” from the local area and keep students living on Long Island and thinking about business plans to improve the local economy.
“Unfortunately there’s an exodus out of Long Island. Once students graduate high school and college, the overwhelming majority do not return,” Tallini said. “We felt that if other students invested in businesses, they’d stay in the area.”
Tallini said the deadline for submitting business plans has been extended for students in the school district from mid-November until Nov. 30.
The extension is intended to give Tallini and Achille an opportunity to make presentations at all the district high schools – a process that was interrupted by Hurricane Sandy.
Last year, the program, which provides mentors from the Elmont Chamber of Commerce to help students hone prospective business plans, issued a single $5,000 scholarship.
“When they start developing their business ideas and they’re assigned a mentor, the mentor is really there to scrutinize the idea ,” Tallini said.
In interviews last year, Tallini said students expressed a desire to see the program expanded beyond a single scholarship. This year’s program has drawn triple the applications thus far, and as many as two scholarships may be added, depending on fundraising efforts that support it, Tallini said.
Last year’s first prize went to Titus Williams, a student at SUNY Old Westbury who presented a plan to develop the Belmont Park area into an entertainment and sports complex. Included was a call to revive the Long Island Rail Road station there.
“The most important part of his idea was he was going to reopen the Belmont LIRR station,” Tallini said.
Tallini said he expected many of this year’s Invest in Elmont plans would also focus on Belmont Park. And he also anticipates plans that incorporate environmentally progressive elements from the district’s high school students.
“Their generation is very conscious of mass transit, green, getting away from cars,” Tallini said.
Tallini, who grew up in Floral Park and left Long Island for a time, is a real estate developer in Elmont. Achille owns an upscale barbershop near Tallini’s offices.
Students interested in the program can fill out an application online at www.elmontchamber.com/invest_in_elmont or pick up applicatons in their high school guidance departments.
