How can you bring together a group of high school or middle school students from different schools with a range of interests on the first day of a two week program? Flop Balls, of course! The Wake Forest Chamber Foundation’s newest program, the Young Entrepreneurs Academy, ran for the first time this summer and they asked us to help kick off the program.

On day one after brief introductions, we connected a few quick Flop Ball exercises to the Entrepreneurial Mindset. But more importantly, we created an opportunity for the participants to interact and get to know each other in a playful way. The awkward, quiet stiffness quickly shifted into laughing and interacting. 

We left the Flop Balls with the students and encouraged them to keep developing skills during breaks over the course of the two weeks together. It turns out, the Flop Balls regularly got pulled out and played. One day, the group waited for a bus to take them off-site to tour local businesses. 

Running 15 minutes late, you would imagine a group of teens to take out their phones and disconnect or at least start whining a bit. Instead, without any prompting from the adults, this group took out a Flop Ball, circled up, and started passing it around to each other. Connection, laughter, and being in the moment - that’s the tone we helped set for the group.