Highlighting Black Locally-Owned Businesses

Blog by Chennedy Johnson

ProX partnered with a lot of locally owned businesses to work with our interns this summer, we wanted to highlight a few of those businesses.

The Scented Webb

The Scented Webb is a female black-owned fragrance and wellness business. They feature “over 200 luxury niche and designer fragrances at affordable prices. They have self-care products from perfumes, body oils/hair oil, fragrance oils, sugar scrubs, body butter and more. This service is run by Victoria Campbell Osborn.

Ms. Victoria Osborn thinks that students should be intrigued by this opportunity of ProX because it “provides an ideal opportunity to not only learn what it is to have a real job experience but to work closely with members of the local businesses in their community and see how they impact the lives and business communities in Kansas City.” When creating her business she put in the thought of there being a “gap” for people who couldn’t purchase quality fragrances before committing to purchasing full-size bottles. The Scented Webb “ultimately offers people to get samples at a low cost so they don’t have to spend all of their money and come out with unsatisfied results.” 

Ms. Victoria has also been educating for a while so she loves working with all students because “there is an ability for us to learn from each other. Working with ProX interns I get to share the knowledge that I have, as both a business owner and in my years of having a career. I get to learn about the aspirations, talents of young people.”

Scented Webb’s intern Lariya Johnson spoke to us about her experience. She said, “her employers understand that they are young, exploring cool opportunities that others haven’t gotten.” She was introduced to ProX by her friend's sister who interned for the company as well. She says she would also recommend this opportunity to other teens that are serious about learning more about what their future might look like because if they are in it for just the money it's not gonna go well for them.” She says she has learned a lot in the weeks such as entrepreneurship, small businesses, to taking notes, and to know your worth which she encourages others to learn.” 

The Prospect KC

Prospect KC is a “ social enterprise supporting communities suffering from food apartheid with approved food access, nutrition education, culinary job training and entrepreneurship.” It was founded in 2019 by a professional chef who is also award-winning from Kansas City and community activist Shanita McAfee-Bryant.

We got to interview an operations director at the Prospect KC Astin McAfee. Astin thinks that the prospect KC gives Kids an opportunity to work with a business that is focused on helping the community. Along with this she has learned lots of things from customer service, problem solving, entrepreneurship and culinary training skills. His biggest impact was giving people confidence in the kitchen and supporting young entrepreneurs. The organization was started by Shanita to empower and uplift, Kansas City east side and to honor her father. We also asked what Juneteenth meant to Astin, Astin said “ Juneteenth is a celebration of the freeing of all Black people and although we were free as a community we have a long way to go.”

Along with Astin we got to interview an intern as well. Her name is Jasey Toney also from Lincoln College Prep Academy. She says her” business is not officially open yet so she gets to see the insight of opening a business.” She was introduced to this by her friend and would recommend this to other teens looking for an opportunity like this. From this she has taken knowledge of brand cohesiveness and what things you shouldn’t and shouldn’t do when building a brand.

The Urban Rangers Corp

The Urban Rangers mission is to “prepare at-risk inner city youth for responsible and productive features through a program” We learned that Urban Rangers work together to do community service around the Kansas City area, such as pick up track, mow lawns, fix houses, make build boards sightings and even more. These guys are willing to make our community better. We spoke to one of the urban rangers going by the name of Brandon Stanford who also attends Lincoln College Prep Academy. His experience has taught him how to “ be more responsible and turn them from young boys into young men.” He was first introduced to this opportunity from his school when giving kids insight about what they might do for the summer and would recommend this to others who want to get a little money as a student and if you can’t find a job for your suitable age. He says he learned a lot with teamwork, communication skills with other people as well.