(ABC 6 News) – Earlier today, 11th grade economic students from John Marshall High school took center stage for the Downtown Business Pitch Day at the Chateau Theatre.

The event is part of the city’s Equity in the Built Environment program, which features a month long project and partnership between the school and the city. The program strives to open doors for women of color.

“Showing them that there’s possibility for change,” said program manager Julie Brock. “There’s possibility for growth and that they are an incredibly important voice that we need to listen to as we consider how we’re growing and how we’re changing in the downtown and across our community.”

From bakeries to bookstores, students outlined a number of ideas with the hope of bringing more traffic to the downtown area.

Students explored various spaces in downtown and they created not only business plans, but social media pages for their proposed business to practice marketing skills.

“Getting kids out in the community and doing hands on learning is where we’re gonna see the most bang for our buck in education,” said Susan Bender, an economics teacher at John Marshall. “The amount of learning that kids have taken away from this is amazing and the program isn’t only catching attention in the med city.”