Students help elderly entrepreneurs with “Business Grandparents” social media accounts

A group of students has launched a project to help elderly business owners struggling amid the pandemic by promoting their services on social media.

Under the name “Dziadkowie Biznesu” (Business Grandparents) they post regularly about businesses across the country, ranging from watchmakers and shoe shops to bakeries and ice-cream parlours.

Their Instagram account has already racked up 34,000 followers in the two weeks since featuring their first “grandparents”, Marian and Paweł, who have since 1993 run a shoe shop in Warsaw but have seen their takings decline 60% amid the pandemic.

The project began when a group of six management students at the University of Warsaw received a theme-oriented task in a national contest. The theme was “the elderly”.

“We had a number of ideas, but in the end we decided to go forward with Business Grandparents,” said one of the students, Julia Kuleżewska, quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza.

“The elderly people who run business or service points rarely use the internet the way our generation does,” added another team member, Oliwia Szataniak. “They don’t know how to promote themselves this way and we wanted to help.”

Initially, due to the epidemiological situation, the students focused on the cities that they come from. But soon they started getting submissions from all over the country.

“The scale of the project exceeded our expectations,” Szataniak admits. As well as their 34,000 followers on Instagram, they have almost 9,000 on Facebook and 2,000 on Twitter.

Each post briefly presents a small business and its owner(s), says how long they have been operating, describes the challenges they have faced during the pandemic, and gives practical information like opening hours or if card payments are accepted.

Among those featured is Zygmunt, who has run his patisserie in Kielce since 1974, and has been in the profession since turning 18.

“His job is his passion and he does it with true feeling,” reads the post. “It’s also a sacrifice for other people – he works Monday to Saturday, from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Due to the pandemic his turnover plummeted by 60%.”

Another to feature is Helena, who has been running a dressmaking shop called Igiełka (Little Needle) for 40 years. Last March, she and her daughter found themselves with no work, so instead used their time to sew protective masks for medical personnel for free.

At some point they had to close down the shop as they were not able to make ends meet and afford the rent. But at the start of 2021, they decided to reopen.

At first, some business owners were not eager to participate. “Some were worried that we might cheat them or charge them for promoting their services,” Szataniak says. But their project has already begun to bear fruit.

They have received positive feedback from some of the people they promoted, such as a florist from Katowice and the owner of an ice-cream shop in Katowice, who say that their turnover has soared since the start of the campaign.

The stories have also inspired other forms of support. After they posted about an 80-year-old shoemaker in Łódź, a charity launched a crowdfunding campaign for him that has already collected over 13,000 złoty (€3,000).

The students, encouraged by their success, are planning to continue the project, even when the competition is over. They have considered starting a foundation that would support elderly people who are professionally active.

Main image credit: Dziadkowie_Biznesu/Instagram

Agnieszka Wądołowska

Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna