Summer job
cancellations encourage
local students
to create their
own work
By Joy Saha
LONG GONE ARE the days of
stressing over impending homework
deadlines and grueling late-night study
sessions. During the summer months,
tweens and teens look forward to making
some extra cash and working.

But this year’s summer came with its
own challenges. As health and safety risks
related to the pandemic continued to
prevail, many local businesses cancelled
their job opportunities for the season.

For a select group of local students, the
current setbacks haven’t dampened their
entrepreneurial spirits. Instead, they’re
putting their creativity to work, launching
their own individual startups to earn a
few bucks and, for some, giving back to
the community.

Eleven-year old Orit Vainstein from
Bethesda kick-started her babysitting
business in early June with help from her
friends and family. The rising sixth grader
at North Bethesda Middle School is both
the founder and a member of Virtual
Kidsitters, an online kid sitting group
helping parents efficiently work from
home with minimal stress.

“Virtual kid sitting is to help parents
be able to work while the kids do fun
and educational activities,” Vainstein
says. “We know that parents during this
quarantine need to work, but their kids
always want attention.”
Virtual Kidsitters currently includes
nine babysitters, including Vainstein
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and her friends from school, Hebrew
school and camp. The group primarily
works with children in kindergarten
through second grade. The babysitters
also offer classes and storytime sessions
for younger children through their newly
launched Pre-K program.

Each kid sitting session features two
babysitters who engage in interactive
activities, including arts, crafts and games,
with up to five children. These sessions are
free and take place over Zoom, lasting for a
maximum of 45 minutes.

Although the group’s collective goal
is to help working parents amidst the
ongoing pandemic, Vainstein mentions
that Virtual Kidsitters has a larger
humanitarian goal—one that’s more
universal than personal. The babysitters
collect optional donations from their
customers and donate proceeds to the
Manna Food Bank, Anerican Red Cross
and Feeding America. As of mid-July,
Virtual Kidsitters has collected close to
$200 in donations.

“We’re actually not getting money for
ourselves…we want to help people and
our community in these rough times,”
Vainstein says.

In the same spirit as Vainstein, Noah
Medved and Mac Patterson, two 15-year-
old teens from Virginia, are also making
money this summer by detailing and
cleaning neighborhood cars. What started
as a simple act of generosity soon flourished
into a complete business idea for the pair.

“I started, at first, cleaning my mom’s
car…just because I was trying to be nice,”
Medved says. “I soon realized that I could
make money off of this.”
Medved and Patterson’s car detailing
business, which was launched in May, has
garnered more than 40 local customers.

The business’s services are advertised
on Facebook, which allows for quick and
efficient customer outreach.

Although their work is quite
rewarding—the pair make $85 to $95 per
car—Medved and Patterson acknowledge
that their jobs are both strenuous and
difficult. They both work approximately
six to eight hours per day and are
oftentimes overbooked due to their high
volumes of clients.

“We get pretty tired and we get triple
booked on cars,” says Patterson. “We put
our hard sweat into these cars.” The pair
are also saving their profits for college.

But despite all the challenges, both
Medved and Patterson agree that
managing their car detailing business is a
“learning experience.” Proper scheduling
and organization are key for running their
business smoothly and ensuring that
each of their customers receive the best
service possible.

Unlike Vainstein, Medved and
Patterson, 15-year-old Ryan Weiner from
Potomac is using his personal passion—
specifically, his passion for baseball—to



BASEBALL: JSATT83 /ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS; DOG WALKER: TERA VECTOR / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS ;
CARWASH: MEDESULDA / DIGITALVISION VECTORS; DELIVERY: BSD555 / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS
make profit. The high school student is
providing individual baseball lessons to
local children in hopes of giving them the
opportunity to improve their skills and
appreciate the sport.

“One thing that I’ve always noticed
when I’ve taken lessons is that sometimes
they are never geared towards the kids,”
says Weiner. “I really want to gear my
lessons to these [elementary school] kids
who are [8 - 11 years old], where they can
really grow and get so much better in a
short amount of time.”
Weiner uses personal connections,
online listservs and social media platforms
to help publicize his lessons and encourage
kids to enroll. Each lesson is catered
towards Weiner’s individual students,
focusing on their technique, form, pitching
and more. Baseball lessons also are
anywhere from an hour to two hours long.

The price for Weiner’s lessons all depends
on the length of the practice and the number
of students. For an hour-long lesson with
one student, Weiner charges $30.

Because his lessons are interactive,
Wiener adds that he constantly has to be
aware about his students’ safety as well as
his own. He’s readily stocked with plenty
of hand sanitizer, masks and disinfecting
wipes. He’s also mindful of social
distancing protocols and makes sure that
he and his students maintain at least 6
feet in distance.

“That’s really a setback when you’re in
a pandemic, just in general,” he says. “If I
were to do this when it’s not quarantine,
I can basically meet up with my clients
wherever.” And Wiener mentions that he does
plan to continue his lessons even after
quarantine passes.

“This is something that can help a lot
of kids,” Wiener says. “I want to be a role
model to these kids and I think this is a
great way to be [one].”
Compared to the other young
entrepreneurs, David Renbaum’s own
business initiative doesn’t focus on a
single service, but rather many. The
college student’s Baltimore County-
based task service, Clock In, completes
routine errands for individuals within the
COVID-19 high-risk demographic. Errands
include grocery shopping, car washing,
dog washing, moving furniture, restaurant
pickups and delivery and dump runs.

Like many students, Renbaum was set
to work as a camp counselor at sleepaway
camp for the summer. But his plans were
cancelled due to the pandemic and his
own autoimmune condition. Devoid
of work and unable to find local jobs,
Renbaum began creating his own jobs to
make money over the summer.

“I forecasted a pretty empty summer,
and I was brainstorming ways on how to
fix it and how to create work for myself,”
he says. “So, the first thing that I came up
with is an employment agency. ”
After completing a few grocery runs
for his grandparents, Renbaum and his
friends developed their business idea
and organized the task service startup.

Clock In was officially launched on May
26 with a strong staff entirely made up
of Renbaum’s friends, family and family
friends. The startup currently has 10
independent employees.

Clients first sign up for a specific
service(s) on Clock In’s official website.

Employees then coordinate amongst
themselves to determine who will serve
each client and what specific services
they’re requested to provide. After
errands are run, employees continue to
keep in touch with their clients to ensure
that any future requests or services can
be completed immediately.

“People don’t necessarily know what
they need until they need it,” Renbaum
says. Such tasks, like grocery shopping or
food pickup, are both simple and routine
in nature. And for those who are wary of
stepping outside during this time, having
these tasks completed for them is greatly
beneficial. Staying true to the startup’s principal
mission, Renbaum adds that 10 percent
of Clock In’s profits in the month of
June was donated to Johns Hopkins’
COVID-19 Response team. Another non-
profit organization or local charity will
be chosen for the month of July, says
Renbaum. n
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