The Allen Entrepreneurial Institute at Camp Exposure

BY: Michael Jones

This past weekend I attended The Allen Entrepreneurial Institute at Camp Exposure in Lithonia, Georgia for an entrepreneurship seminar. The brains behind this whole operation are Mr. Lecester Allen and his staff at Camp Exposure. Mr. Allen created this camp to help expose inner city youth in Detroit to something better and different that could motivate them to take school seriously and eventually move out of the violent inner city. With some of the money that Mr. Allen has accumulated over his career he started this camp. When you first pull into the property all you see is a huge building that looks like a mansion that has The Allen Executive House in bold black letters right across the top of the building. However this is just a hotel that Mr. Allen has on his property to house his guest. Shortly after we arrived to Camp Exposure we took a short tour of the 180 acre property and soon found out that The Alan Executive House was not the mansion that we had been told about before the trip. In the back of the property there is a drive way about 50 feet in length covered by trees that leads to Miss Rebecca’s House. Mr. Allan started having this mansion constructed in 2001 in memory of his mother who died 25 years ago. I’ll tell you what, the house looked good. There are also 3 lakes on his property along with and old farm, and about 10 other regular size houses. Mr. Allen decided when he was a child that he would build his mother an estate like the mansion on the plantation he grew up on. He definitely kept his word for that promise. Mr. Allen told all of us Clark Atlanta University business students that no one stays in Miss Rebecca’s Mansion and we could not believe it. Mr. Allen did not purchase all of these things to show them off, he did it to expose young black youth to something positive. Mr. Allen just started inviting colleges and universities to camp exposure 4 to 5 years ago. This year was Clark Atlanta University’s turn to attend Camp Exposure. I felt inspired from the beginning to the end of the seminar. I definitely understood why Mr. Allen would bring so many grade schools to Camp Exposure. After we toured the property and put our things away we started with lunch and after that it was seminar after seminar learning new things and thinking in different ways. We ended the day with dinner and etiquette training. Miss M taught us the dos and don’ts of etiquette at the dinner table.
The second day started with breakfast and back to back seminars on computer applications to business and on being a stronger person and better entrepreneur. After these seminars where over we went on a tour of black owned business and prominent black communities in Lithonia Georgia. We stopped at a black owned UPS store, dancing theater, and restaurant. All of the entrepreneurs that we met told us how they started in the entrepreneurship world. They all made it very clear that being an entrepreneur is not an easy job and requires an inhuman amount of energy to stay on top of your business. All of them had at least one business that failed but they told us it’s not about the mistakes you make, it’s about the recovery you make from those mistakes that makes you a stronger and better businessman. After we left from all the businesses we went on a sightseeing tour of a sub division in Lithonia. There where huge mansions on both sides of the street and 98% of the people that lived in and around that subdivision where African Americans. It was almost too much to take in at once because everywhere you turned there was another mansion just as big as the one before. At this point it was very easy to see how young African American youth could be influenced to start doing better to get to that level in life. After the tour was over we came back to The Allen Executive House and prepared for our performances that would take place later on that night. It was a short production introducing Clark Atlanta University to the Allen Entrepreneurial Institute at Camp Exposure. After this program was over it was time for dinner in Miss Rebecca’s house. This was the final surprise that Mr. Allen had for us. We walked in the mansion and had light hors dourves and conversation until dinner started. Once the dinner bell rang everyone went downstairs and ate. After dinner was over we were free to explore this beautiful house. This 5 story mansion has 19 bedrooms, 29 bathrooms, 2 dining rooms, 3 $350,000 chandlers, a 24k gold ceiling in the basement, 5 kitchens, 4 elevators, a swimming pool that divides the house in half, and Brazilian Cherry hardwood flooring throughout the entire house. It was the most amazing house I’ve ever seen in my life. We went back to The Allen Executive House when the night was over and got ready for our last night there.
The final day has come and we’re up early in the morning once again for breakfast. After breakfast was over we had words of encouragement from Miss Monae. She graduated from Morris Brown College in the AUC and went on to get her MBA from Harvard University. This was when tears started flowing from all the emotions people where having, but nevertheless they were tears of joy. After Miss Monae finished speaking we had a few more words of wisdom from an accountant entrepreneur. Once she was finished speaking it was time to leave. Everyone said their goodbyes and made some last chance networking opportunities. Soon we were on our way back to campus as better business students and entrepreneurs.