From cake pops to candles, auto detailing to window washing, 31 students in the Whiteside Area Career Center’s CEO program will be showing and selling the fruits of their labor at the annual WACC CEO student trade show, Wednesday and Thursday at Northland Mall in Sterling.

The trade show will be open from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

As they market their products and operate their businesses at the trade show, students also will be learning.

“I am a strong believer that there are so many little things you can do to elevate yourself among your peers. It’s the ability to communicate with a wide range of people, to be articulate and confident, to produce the ‘wow’ factor. We tell them that to go a little bit extra isn’t that hard, the handshake, looking people in the eye, being the first one to speak,” said LeAndra Hartman, west side facilitator for the WACC CEO (Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities) program.

Grace Johnson is the east side facilitator for the program. The two groups are divided by the location of the high schools in WACC’s region.

By the time the trade show kicks off, students will have spent almost the entire year arriving at that point.

“We start the year reassuring them that we will get there because it can be pretty overwhelming for a high school student. The beginning is a lot of communication and confidence building and building their ability to speak to people,” Hartman said.

Students pitch their individual business ideas to the program’s “bankers,” a group of local business people. Each of the groups develops and presents a group project, their group’s business, that earns money. That money is then used for seed money for the student businesses.

“We give them what they ask for if their business plan is solid. Then they go to work, ordering supplies, doing marketing and that gets them to where we are now,” Hartman said.