Orange County Chamber of Commerce awards $5K to OC BOCES graduate for her ‘Portable Pretty’ business plan

Natalie Buckridge, a recent graduate of Orange-Ulster BOCES’s cosmetology program, has won the final round of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce’s new Shark Tank-inspired LaunchPad Entrepreneurial Business Academy competition with a proposal to provide beauty services to the chronically ill and others who can’t make it to a salon.

One of nine seniors in Orange County high schools and trade schools chosen in the spring for the weeklong immersive program, Buckridge won a $5,000 grant to start Portable Pretty, an enterprise inspired when a woman close to Buckridge developed cancer.

“When she shaved her hair, she said she didn’t feel pretty anymore,” Buckridge said at the final round of competition and award ceremony at the Orange County Emergency Services Center in Goshen on July 13. “I thought that this woman was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, so hearing her say that really hurt.”

Buckridge’s solution: develop a business to travel to nursing homes and other facilities, as well as private homes, to bring hair styling and other services to the clients.

“We want to provide beauty services to every single person who cannot go to a salon,” she said. “We want to help women and men with their self-esteem and confidence.”

LaunchPad participants engaged in five days of business training and hands-on experience at Orange-Ulster BOCES in Goshen. The immersive experience is designed to guide participants from business idea development to pitching for startup funding.

“We’re not simply teaching students how to start a business, we’re developing future employers,” said Heather Bell, president and CEO of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce. “We are cultivating future entrepreneurs and innovators, and we are preparing for future community leaders. Every student that participated in LaunchPad is a winner. Each leaves this program with something even more valuable than funding, a network of business leaders who believe in them, support them and are committed to them in the Orange County Chamber of Commerce.”

Buckridge plans to use the $5,000 to buy equipment, technology, supplies – including high-end shampoo – transportation and gas.

A short-term goal is to serve 100 clients who have cancer in the first year. A larger goal is to expand throughout the Hudson Valley and New York State – and possibly beyond.