Student earns ‘cool’ cash through self-started business
Some associate fraternity banquets with a one thing: painting a cooler. Senior Julia Caplan has made this tradition into a business.
“I kept getting phone calls from people who were also going to banquet saying Julia can you come help me with this, how do I do this, how do I mix a color to get this?” Caplan said. “So I started volunteering and then I realized I could get a little something from it.”
That’s when Caplan started painting banquet coolers for money.
“Hey I’ll do your whole thing if you pay me for it!” Caplan said.
Caplan says she has painted close to 30 coolers in her Elon career and that doesn’t include the 50 plus she has helped others with. At first she didn’t know how much to charge.
“I was like oh 25 for the small ones, and my roommate was like ‘no no no you have to charge much more than that!’” Caplan said.
Her average going price is now $35 to $75 depending on the size, and people are lining up to pay.
“All of the sudden, everyone is like okay cool I’ll just drop it off, and so then I have 8 in my living room and I’m like how am I going to get all this done?” Caplan said. “There always hits a point where I have to say I’m sorry I just can’t do another one”
The results speak for themselves.
“I am not artistic, I knew she was an art major, and she immediately jumped at the offer, and I took her up on it,” sophomore student Emily Choinski said. “And she did an amazing job!”
Sometimes Caplan is overwhelmed with the amount of coolers she has to paint, but she says she always enjoys the work.
