Jimmy Bailey devotes about three- quarters of his time to helping low- income children become entrepreneurs, leaving just one-fourth of his time for his commercial real estate business.

The former state representative and Charleston mayoral candidate said that although he grew up poor, he’s had a good and successful life.

“But I’m 63 years old and this is the last opportunity I have to effect positive change in my lifetime,” Bailey said.

He says promoting entrepreneurship and business skills among low-income children helps improve the lives of those children and the community.

Children who are successful in a business venture are more likely to complete high school, he said. “Once a kid starts making some money, he knows he needs math, social skills and economics, so he gets more engaged in school.”

Two events led to Bailey eventually launching YEScarolina, a nonprofit organization that trains teachers to instruct entrepreneurial skills and offers business camps to students sixth- through 12th-grade.

In 1998, he read an article about special gifts that many low-income children possess because they’ve had to survive some serious conditions. They’re often skeptical of hierarchy, accustomed to stress, creative, not afraid

of failure and full of chutzpah, Bailey said.

“They have street sense,” he said, “and that’s the same thing as business smarts.”

Then in 2003, he was on vacation in Jamaica, where he saw many street children making a living selling things to tourists.

“They were allowed to take advantage of the tourist dollar,” he said. In Charleston, “a portion of our society isn’t getting a fair share of that pie.”

Maybe one of the children selling palmetto roses downtown could grow up to own a business, he said.

Bailey’s group, YEScarolina also runs the training program for young Charleston vendors who make roses from palmetto fronds and sell them to tourists. Vendors must complete a one-week training course and get a permit before they can sell the roses.

Young people trained through YEScarolina also have made money selling coffee, doorstops painted with college logos and gourmet dog food, Bailey said. One student made more than $16,000 last year selling hand-painted shoes.

Tommy Baker of Baker Motors is chairman of YEScarolina’s board and teaches entrepreneurship classes at the College of Charleston.

Bailey, he said, had the unique vision and ability to create a nonprofit that could reach teachers and children and promote entrepreneurship statewide. That’s important because small businesses are essential to South Carolina’s economy.

“We don’t have corporate America here,” Baker said. “We have businesses that start in the garage or around the kitchen table.”

He said Bailey has “totally dedicated his life the past three years to the YEScarolina program and hasn’t received a penny for his work.”

But Johanna Martin- Carrington, executive director of the Jenkins Institute for Children, said Bailey is good at coming up with pennies and dollars for others.

Just before the December holidays last year, she said, Bailey volunteered to teach some business skills to seven young people from her organization.

The students developed plans for businesses they would like to launch one day, she said.

And as a holiday gift to the students, Bailey gathered contributions from some of his friends, gave each child a $175 gift card for new clothes, then had a limousine pick them up and take them to dinner at a fine restaurant.

“Some of them had never been to a sit-down restaurant before,” she said.

But the business plans that the young people came up with in the class were an even greater gift, she said.

Two students developed a plan to open a restaurant and hair salon side by side, she said.

“It’s their dream,” she said. “I don’t know if the dream will come to fruition, but (Bailey) ignited that dream.”

The Jefferson Awards
Honoring individuals for their community service. www.aips.org

Jefferson Awards

The Post and Courier features a Jefferson Award nominee every Sunday on the Local & State page.

To nominate someone in the community for a Jefferson Award, send a 300-word essay explaining the nominee’s accomplish­ments, along with your name and contact information (including phone number and e-mail address), and the nominee’s contact informa­tion (including phone num­ber and e-mail), to

Jefferson Awards,
The Post and Courier,
134 Columbus St.,
Charleston, SC 29403.

Or e- mail jefferson awards@postandcourier.com.

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