By Evan Gitlin, Breakthrough Miami Changemaker; Gulliver Preparatory Student, Class of 2026
Leadership is defined as the ability to influence and guide an individual or group towards a common goal by motivating, inspiring, and empowering others to work together effectively in a positive and collaborative environment.
Driven by this core belief, I was inspired to create Entrepreneurial Outreach, an initiative on which I have spent the past two years partnering with Breakthrough Miami in order to promote entrepreneurial education in underserved communities. Before launching Entrepreneurial Outreach, I served as a regular Saturday volunteer at Breakthrough Miami’s Gulliver Prep site.
The idea for Entrepreneurial Outreach was born in the same place where Breakthrough Miami Scholars spend their Saturdays: in the classroom. While taking an entrepreneurship course as part of Gulliver Prep’s signature business program, I recognized an opportunity to share the knowledge that I was learning at school with the Scholars that I volunteered with each weekend. What began as a simple concept—a speaker series featuring local entrepreneurs—quickly evolved into a year-long curriculum designed to teach 8th-grade Breakthrough scholars the fundamentals of entrepreneurship.
Coincidentally, entrepreneurship was already a core component of Breakthrough Miami’s programming for both middle and high school students. The timing, the mission, and the passion aligned, and that is when I saw the program really take off.
Engaging students from the Gulliver Prep chapter of the National Business Honor Society, Entrepreneurial Outreach is a fully student-run initiative. Aligned with Breakthrough Miami’s students-teaching-students model, our student-led programming has proven to be both empowering and sustainable, offering lasting value to both the Breakthrough Scholars and the student instructors. Entrepreneurial Outreach’s year-long curriculum leads up to the annual school year Breakthrough Miami Business Plan Competition held at the University of Miami Herbert School of Business.
Ali, a Breakthrough Scholar at the Gulliver Prep Breakthrough Miami site, shared his year-long experience with Entrepreneurial Outreach. Ali was a member of the Gulliver Prep team that competed in the Breakthrough Miami Business Plan Competition. Under the direction of myself and other Entrepreneurial Outreach volunteers, he and his peers created PartyPlot, a revolutionary app that allows for easy event planning.
Ali said, “The Entrepreneurial Outreach program through Breakthrough Miami was an eye-opening experience for not only me, but also for my partners who have been my friends since I joined Breakthrough. We learned many things about the process of creating, starting, growing, and maintaining a business. The biggest experience of all was pitching our ideas at the University of Miami and seeing the world of professional business.”
Ali and his team ultimately placed third in the competition. However, I and the other volunteers reiterated that it was not about where PartyPlot placed, but more about what they learned and gained from the experience, and the team took this to heart.
While starting off as a program at the Gulliver Prep site, I expanded Entrepreneurial Outreach to Miami Country Day School this past school year. I recruited Gulliver Prep National Business Honor Society students, along with volunteers from Miami Country Day, to work with the Breakthrough Scholars and mentor them for the upcoming competition. The curriculum I developed covered key concepts, including idea generation and development, market research, finances, marketing, and honing public speaking skills.
The support from Breakthrough Miami has been incredible. The relationships made along the journey have allowed the program to thrive. People always focus on what volunteers like me do for the organization. In this case, the focus should be on what the organization has done for me and the volunteers. The countless people at Breakthrough Miami have changed the lives of the Entrepreneurial Outreach volunteers, like myself, as much as we volunteers have impacted the lives of the Breakthrough Scholars.
Just like the Scholars’ business plans, Entrepreneurial Outreach started as nothing more than an idea. With hard work, passion, and support from Breakthrough Miami, I have grown the program into something real and meaningful. Looking ahead, I plan to expand Entrepreneurial Outreach to all Breakthrough Miami sites so that more scholars can benefit from the experience. At the time of writing, I am serving as a Summer Teaching Fellow at the Breakthrough University of Miami site. This opportunity has once again allowed me to share my knowledge in entrepreneurship at a broader scale than ever before. My students, aspiring freshmen in high school, are scholars from each of the Breakthrough Miami sites. Many of them I have taught previously and are familiar with the Entrepreneurial Outreach curriculum from the past school year. Upon graduating high school next year, I intend to transition the leadership of Entrepreneurial Outreach to a Breakthrough Miami Scholar who participated in the initiative this past year. The goal is to pass it on to someone who has seen the “outreach” firsthand and is ready to carry it forward. ♦
