Lula Greene ’21 graduated from The Children’s School and moved on to Academe of the Oaks where she’s continued to thrive. In 2024, Rough Draft Atlanta recognized her as one of their “20 Under 20” winners.
Here, she talks about how TCS helped prepare her for high school and sparked her interest in entrepreneurship.
You’re well known at TCS because you helped start the Spirit Shop! Can you talk about that?
Yes, I did. So when I was in third grade, I wanted merchandise that was TCS themed, and had all of the branding, and all the things. What was available wasn’t really what students wanted, so I went to the head of school at the time, and I baked some cookies and we sat down and had a meeting. He gave me a thousand dollars of seed money to start it. A few months later, we launched it, and we sold thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Now, several years later, it’s the eighth grade project, which is really cool. There’s a developed website and so much of a system compared to what we had. I actually went on to recreate the same business at Academe.
How did that experience with the Spirit Shop help you in high school?
So, I actually just wrote about it in one of my college applications. It’s motivated me to be an entrepreneur, and I have motivated myself to continue to have that entrepreneurial mindset that was instilled in me as such a little kid. It’s so cool that I had that opportunity and it’s defined so much of who I am as a student and a learner and wanting to do those hands-on projects and going the extra mile because I’ve seen what happens when you do.
Can you talk a little bit about how TCS prepared you for high school?
In 8th grade we learned a lot about how to write an essay and that was essential to me starting high school. I write a minimum of five or six essays a semester so we do a lot of writing. A lot of my classmates were learning how to write an essay, but I was able to do that and complete it and do it well, and with all of my MLA formatting knowledge that had been drilled into me.
I also had project-based learning which transferred from TCS to Academe, and it was really cool to be able to connect the two where we were doing shorter-term projects at TCS at Academe. Our projects are long-term. TCS taught me how to do that and how to work with others.
Anything else you want to say about your time at TCS or how its impacted you?
TCS taught me how to learn. I’ve said that to so many people over the years. TCS really did just teach me how to be a learner and push the boundaries of learning and ask questions and not be afraid to ask questions.
