Scholer

Beth Scholer has been named the fourth champion of Ivy Tech Community College Northeast’s New Venture Competition, which took place Thursday evening on Ivy Tech Northeast’s Coliseum Campus.

Scholer has been working on her business, Caregivers Kitchen, for more than five years. She works with companies to teach cooking classes to at-home caregivers. Often, caregivers lack even basic cooking skills—she shared anecdotes of one woman trying to brew coffee beans whole and another who didn’t realize an egg would explode if cooked in the microwave. Through testing caregivers before and after her classes, she has seen test scores increase an average of 30 percent.

“I had butterflies in my stomach,” she said after she learned she’d won. “I was thrilled. I felt like the work I put into it up until that point, it was paying off.”

Scholer and two other finalists—Heather Overmyer of Events from Above, and Maggie Kitch of Pure Power Nutrition—gave 15-minute presentations to the room of judges, made up of 40-plus local business people and entrepreneurs. After the women’s presentations, judges were allowed an additional 15 minutes for a question-and-answer session. The judges had been provided the contestants’ business plans prior to the event.

Watch a short video for Scholer’s business—and for Overmyer’s and Kitch’s—at YouTube.com/user/ivytechnortheast. Choose the “New Venture Competition” playlist.

In its fourth year, the New Venture Competition is sponsored by Dave and Mary Bear of JB Tool, Die & Engineering Inc.

From left: James Tolbert, business administration assistant professor; Dave and Mary Bear of event sponsor JB Tool, Die & Engineering Inc.; Scholer; and Ivy Tech Northeast chancellor Jerrilee Mosier.