Autauga County students launch real businesses for Market Day showcase

Resin crafts, hydro-dipped gear and natural bug spray are among the student-made products headed for Market Day at 17 Springs, where Millbrook and Coosada’s youngest entrepreneurs will test whether a school project can become a real pipeline into local business.

The showcase is set for May 6 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at 17 Springs, and it brings together gifted students from Millbrook Middle School and Airport Road Intermediate School. Over several weeks, the students built businesses from the ground up, brainstorming product ideas, creating logos, setting prices and practicing how to present their work to customers. The project went far beyond a classroom exercise. Students used heat presses, sublimation tools, digital design software and 3D modeling to produce candles, bath products, jewelry, tote bags, aprons, mouse pads and games, learning how production and marketing work together long before they ever open a storefront.

The project also linked the schools to a real business in Prattville. Tees by Taylor, at 134 West 3rd Street, helped bring the student logos to life on shirts, giving the children a direct look at how a local shop turns design ideas into finished products. Students also took a small-business scavenger hunt through downtown Prattville, where they saw firsthand how storefronts, branding and customer service shape the local economy. That kind of exposure matters in a county where school programs can either stay inside the building or connect to the businesses that already anchor the community.

At Millbrook Middle School, gifted specialist Sarah Porter has guided gifted education there since 2012. Alabama’s gifted-education guidance defines gifted students as those who perform or show the potential to perform at high levels in academic or creative fields compared with others of the same age, experience or environment, and this project put that definition into practice by asking students to think like owners, not just learners. Airport Road Intermediate School, located at 384 Blackmon Farm Lane in Coosada, says on its website that it earned a B+ on the Alabama State Department of Education report card.

The venue adds another layer to the story. Phase II of 17 Springs opened in February 2025 on a 120-acre property backed by a partnership of the City of Millbrook, the Elmore County Commission, Elmore County Schools, Greater Montgomery YMCA/Grandview Family YMCA and the Elmore County Economic Development Authority. The Marketplace there was described as a 12-commercial-lot development intended for restaurants, a hotel and retail. Putting student businesses in that setting turns Market Day into more than a showcase. It becomes an early test of whether Autauga and nearby communities can build a stronger small-business culture from the classroom up.