Empowering youth through active play

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in active play, but not sure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Mike McDonald, the founder of Recess Guardians, an active play charity based in Canada.

Tell us all about your business...

Recess Guardians is a National charitable corporation that is working to empower youth to lead through active play. We believe that every child has the ability to be a leader, they just need to know that there is someone out there who believes in them.

Play has the ability to teach youth lifelong skills that will help them be successful in both their personal and professional lives. Whether it is communication, fair play, conflict resolution, or inclusion, play is teaching these skills that they wouldn't necessarily learn in the classroom. Right now, 50% of corporations state that youth lack the soft skills needed to succeed at the next level. Play has been proven to help strengthen these skills. Although math and science are important, we cannot forget about those skills that make people great human beings.

Our program has youth lead their peers, and younger youth, in games and activities at recess or free time. By doing this, we are helping them gain confidence in themselves that will follow them into the classroom and beyond. All it takes is one game, or activity, that a youth is passionate about to make them confident in themselves leading or instructing it. Lots of these youth haven't ever been put in a position to lead, but once they are given the chance they step up to the plate and deliver a home run every time. We also work with them to talk about winning and losing, and showcasing how to be a good sport either way. Resiliency is a huge part of our teaching and these youth learn that it isn't important who wins or loses, but rather how many people played and was everyone included.

Over the pandemic, we launched two new programs. A virtual program that is free for anyone who wants it. Whether you are educating your kids at home, or in a school, you can utilize our resources. Also, we launched active8 which is a kit program that contains equipment and programming to get youth active at home and at school. This is a very kid-centric program that doesn't require any adult led activities. Youth can open it up, and get going with a new activity everyday for 2 months. Our customers include educators, parents/guardians and youth. We are a charity so we try to bring on sponsors and donors to make sure these programs remain free to as many people as possible.

What's your background and motivation to grow as a business owner?

My name is Mike McDonald and I am the founder/CEO of Recess Guardians. The reason our organization got started was between high school and University, my parents made me take a year off of school. They said I had to work, or travel, and experience the real world. During this time, I worked at a core community school in Saskatoon and realized recess was actually being cancelled in a lot of schools due to unproductive behaviour that required teacher attention afterward. I thought this was awful that so many negative incidents were happening and decided I wanted to make a change.

During my second year of Kinesiology at the University of Saskatchewan, I decided to start up the corporation and hence I have been at it ever since. I am motivated by the fact that we are helping show these youth that they all have the ability to be leaders, and helping transform their confidence levels. We are giving these youth the chance to succeed, but also showing them that making mistakes is ok as well. I am hoping that we are making them understand just how special they are, and that they have the ability to be whatever they want. Also, I am hoping that we are helping them fall in love with physical activity, and that this will get them to be active for the rest of their lives.

As an entrepreneur, what does success ultimately mean to you?

I would say that our biggest accomplishment as an organization was making a couple big pivots when the pandemic hit. We were 100% an in-person, on the ground program and obviously we had to make a change. We ended up launching both a virtual and physical program that completely transformed our company.

Not only did it help us keep the lights on, but it now provided us with so many new opportunities to impact youth in and out of the classroom. The future is bright and we are so excited to keep expanding on these new initiatives.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being an entrepreneur?

I would say the hardest part about being a business owner is balancing all the tasks you need to accomplish. There are certain aspects of the business that you love to do, and certain one's that you need to do just to keep the business moving forward. You are overseeing absolutely everyone and need to make sure all the trains stay on the tracks. At the end of the day, you have to always think back to why you are doing it and that really helps motivate you through the tasks you don't necessarily love. Everything comes together at the end of the day, and in order to be a successful business you need to be well rounded and have every facet running smoothly.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run or grow a small business today?

1. Passion, passion and PASSION. Find something you absolutely love and make a business out of it. Whether you are presenting to your customers or stakeholders, they will feed off that passion and it will get them just excited as you are.

2. Understand that in order to grow a business, you need to think long term. Lots of businesses grow too quickly and don't really have their feet under them. In order to grow, sometimes you need to slow down and take a step back.

3. Focus on strengths and hire for weaknesses. One of my mentors gave me this advice and it has served me so well. You could work to strengthen your weaknesses, and that's fine, but why not put that time into what you are good at and hire someone who's strength is that weakness? There are only so many hours in the day, so it is important to spend your time in places that you can really help the organization.

Everyone always says that owning a business is a roller coaster, and that is very true. I like to think of it as climbing a mountain. Take those little wins that you get, however small they are, and keep piling them up on each other. You will realize, in time, that the wins far outweigh the losses. Build yourself a mountain of success and this momentum will help your company excel in the present and beyond.

Where can people find you online?

https://www.recessguardians.org/
https://joinactive8.com/
https://twitter.com/recessguardians?lang=en
https://www.instagram.com/recessguardians/?hl=en

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as an entrepreneur or business coach that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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