‘Scent-Citizens’, run by P4/5 in Port Ellen Primary, is to receive an award from the Social Enterprise Academy. The children in P4/5 have been working diligently over the last few months to set up and manage their own social enterprise business producing soaps and bath bombs. They have been involved in writing their own business plan, creating a company name and logo, designing order forms, invoices and customer feedback froms, making orders for resources, producing soaps and bathbombs, packaging, sales, book keeping and delivery.

Scent-Citizens sell their products to the Islay Hotel for the guest bedrooms and at school events. The children wanted to invest some of the profits made into the local community and decided that they would like to help develop the new distillery path. They are going to purchase compost and plants which they will put in barrels kindly donated by Lagavullin Distillery. These barrels will be placed along the path and the children hope that this will encourage people to enjoy using it.

Bert McGlone, Learning Manager at the Social Enterprise Academy in Edinburgh visited the class on Wednesday 12th March to hear all about the journey of ‘Scent-Citizens’ and to see the business in action. Members of the class made presentations to illustrate how the enterprise had developed and explained the business plan, the finance team explained the accounts book and others gave a soap making demonstration.

Mr McGlone said that he was hugely impressed by the enthusiasm and knowledge of the children, the professional manner in which they were able to talk about their business and the amount of work they had done over the last few months.
The children were delighted to hear that they are to receive an award from The Social Enterprise Academy to recognise their hard work. This is the first time such an award has been given to an Islay Primary School.

A group of the children will be attending a grand awards ceremony in Edinburgh on 4th June where they will have the opportunity to showcase their products and be presented with their award by John Sweeney.
‘Scent-Citizens’ would like to thank everyone who has helped to make their social enterprise such a success.