When most students think about the weekend, they may think of a few relaxing days to unwind from a stressful week and prepare for the next. For Sam Corey ‘21 and Phong Le ‘21 however, it is the complete opposite.
For the last three summers, Corey has been running a beach-raking business, and it is steadily growing. He has seen large improvements in the last year by nearly doubling his weekly workload and becoming a registered LLC.
“Becoming a registered LLC has really brought my business to the next level,” Corey said. I have been able to open bank accounts and use it to write checks that are from the company.”
Le has been working for Corey since the beginning of the company’s history and has seen the growth first hand.
“Over the three years I have been working, the company has more than tripled as far as clients go,” Le said. “We used to be able to easily get everything done in one day; now we can’t even get it done in two.”
Corey’s regular service continued until the end of September, which meant he had to battle a mix of school and work for about a month and a half.
“We usually work from sunup to sundown on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as after school on Fridays,” Corey said.
With weekends filled with work, Le was forced to get creative about getting his school work done.
“Because work takes up a large portion of my weekend, I have to wake up around 5:30 in the morning because that gives me almost two hours of deep work before I start because I’m too tired to do any after I get done working,” Le said.
While he enjoys earning the money that comes along with the hard work, Corey is looking forward to more relaxing weekends that are ahead this winter.
“Working all weekend long is not only physically difficult but also mentally because you don’t get a break from the previous week by the time it’s Monday,” Corey said. “I’m definitely looking forward to being done for the year.”
Now that regular service has finished, he only has a few hours of work per weekend, meaning he can turn his focus on college applications and studying for standardized tests.
