Matthews’ Painting Company awarded the 2024 $1,000 Young Entrepreneur Scholarship to Jerome Karth and Wesley Yoder.
The community nominated many contestants across the county. These two were chosen based on a review of their business plan and presentation of their business plan. Each winner was presented with $500 with an ongoing mentorship program offered by owner Jason Matthews .
Karth is the oldest son of Samuel and Naomi Karth. He’s a homeschool student doing mostly third-grade work but is doing fourth-grade math, according to a news release from Matthews’ Painting Co. For several years, his family has been working to create a pollinator garden in their front yard in Syracuse, inspired by needing to replace a dead tree, which left a large area of mulch.
In 2023, Karth took over caring for the garden, researching which plants would be best to feed and house the many pollinators of the area. In addition to planting and expanding the garden, he also added a second ecosystem in the family’s backyard, and soon realized he wanted to share his knowledge with others.
In 2024, he decided to start a gardening business where he creates and plants basic gardens to help ensure pollinators have food, water and places to live. He has plans to have a blog to help educate others on why pollinator gardens are so important and he is already started a list of places that want to have a pollinator garden planted in 2025.
Karth hopes to help inspire others to grow pollination gardens and plans to use his business to offer installment of basic pollinator gardens, specializing in native plants, to help others get started.

    Pictured (L to R) are Derrick Matthews, Amanda Richards, Jamey Shirk, Jada Arnett, Roger Levitz, Wesley Yoder, Jason Matthews, Melissa Matthews, Trevor Owen and Victoria Zorn. Photo Provided
  

In 2025, he wants to start working towards having his personal gardens certified as wildlife habitats, due to the many animals and insects in need of places to live and grow.
Yoder is a 15-year-old homeschooled student. He loves playing video games and is learning game design and programming skills in school and on his own personal time. He currently owns The Lemon Patch, a fresh squeezed lemonade stand, and has been growing in this business for seven years.
In 2023, he and his brother Jeremy won a local Youth Entrepreneur of the Year award. They appeared on live television at ABC 57 and were on the front page of the Goshen News as well. With their win, they were invited to some big festivals, and with the profits they earned they reinvested into their business and created a fresh-squeezed lemonade stand with pneumatic machines and many different flavors in large 32-ounce cups.
In 2024, they set a goal to make $5,000 in profit on their vision board and exceeded that goal. Yoder has a few goals that he would like to achieve before the 2025 lemonade season.