A nonprofit in north Lexington is offering neighborhood teens the chance to earn money by making ceramics that are sold around Central Kentucky.

Naturally, everyone who works at Matchstick Goods must learn how to shape clay.

But the more important lessons have to do with responsibly holding a job — showing up on time, getting along with your boss — and selling their products to the public with confidence at stores and weekend markets. These are skills that will carry them into whatever they do next.

“We go to different events around Lexington and introduce Matchstick to customers who don’t know what Matchstick is,” said 16-year-old Juvalay Cornelio, a junior at Bryan Station High School.

As she spoke on a recent evening in the basement of Embrace Church on North Limestone, Juvalay neatly folded a small slab into the form of a coffee mug. Three of her young colleagues sat on stools alongside her, doing the same. They had an order from the VisitLex gift shop for 25 mugs and 25 ornaments decorated with horses.

Public speaking did not come easily to her, Juvalay admitted.

“At first I was nervous,” she said. “If it’s a really big event, I still get kind of nervous. If it’s a little one with just a few people, then it’s not that hard talking to them.”

For 16-year-old Brisa Lopez, Matchstick Goods is a flexible part-time job that allows her plenty of opportunity to keep up with her school work, which is not something all of her classmates toiling in fast food or retail get to enjoy.

Making money also has taught her how to manage her money, said Brisa, a sophomore at Lafayette High School.

“We had to open up a bank account,” she said. “That was kind of scary because I’m afraid to look in it sometimes. But learning what to spend it on was kind of fun.”

Matchstick Goods was created in 2019 by the nonprofit Common Good Community Development Corp.

Common Good focuses on youths living in the neighborhoods around North Limestone and West Loudon Avenue, where poverty levels are higher and high school graduation rates are lower than Lexington’s citywide average, and many families speak a language at home other than English.

It offers after-school and summer programs for dozens of K-12 students; mentoring for high school seniors as they prepare for college, vocational training or a job; and family support for households that need assistance.

Laura Gallaher, Common Good’s executive director, noticed a few years ago that some of the nonprofit’s youth participants were getting old enough to work while in high school and needed decent jobs, said Dan Fowler, who oversees Matchstick Goods as social enterprise director.

Ten teenagers have been employed by the program so far, with four teens currently working in it, Fowler said.

They earn $11.50 an hour, although that will rise to $12 in 2024, he said. The teens work five to seven hours a week during the school year and 20 hours a week in their summer breaks.

Studio manager Blayne Strippelhoff, who holds a bachelor’s degree in art and design from Asbury University, teaches them how to make ceramics. Studio lead Michele Mina-Hernandez operates the kilns, the large ovens that bake the pottery.

The teens create a wide variety of products: cups and bowls of many kinds, utensil holders, home decorations, tortilla warmers, magnets, soap dishes, paint pallets, spoon rests, planters and vases, and pet accessories.

“The exciting thing right now is that we’re getting into jewelry,” Fowler said. “We’re making ceramic earrings.”

“We invited Juvalay into that creative process,” he said.

“We drew out a number of ideas for jewelry pieces we were interested in trying, we experimented together, and then we had them out at our first market just last weekend. She got to stand behind the products that she saw from drawings to fruition and then actually sold them to customers.”

Matchstick Goods brought 22 pair of earrings to that artists market and sold 10, which was a success, Fowler said.

“For me, that was a really rewarding process, watching that. You know, sometimes they just come in and make mugs, but other times, we try to get them more involved in different parts of this,” he said. “They’re learning project management skills that I think are really rare for students their age to have.”

Where to find Matchstick Goods products:

▪ VisitLex, 215 W. Main St., Lexington

▪ A Cup of Common Wealth, 105 Eastern Ave., Lexington

▪ Kentucky Artisan Center, 200 Artisan Way, Berea

▪ Sunhouse Craft, 414 Chestnut St, Berea

▪ Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest Visitor Center and Gift Shop, 2075 Clermont Road, Clermont