Last night on Dragons’ Den, we witnessed two groups of Halifax children who exemplify all that’s great about student entrepreneurship.

The special student episode featured Hope Blooms, a north-end community garden project that grows its own ingredients for salad dressing, which it sells at $7 a bottle. The group has earned $4,000, which is being poured into their college tuition fund.

Six of its 43 members asked for $10,000 and ended up with $40,000 as well as a promise from four Dragons to help them build the business. (Only Kevin O’Leary, still awaiting that visit from the Ghost of Christmas Present, abstained.)

It was an especially moving segment of the show that demonstrated as little else can the power of social entrepreneurship. The project is teaching these inner-city kids about business, health, proper diet and it’s helping them to plan for university. And it’s making money. Their pitch was magnificent – pulling on the heart strings while also covering all the bases on the business case.

The Halifax North Memorial Public Library, in partnership with the North End Community Health Centre, hosted an event last night to celebrate the show. Afterward, its members tweeted about how awesome it was to finally be able to discuss the outcome of their appearance on Dragons’ Den.

Earlier in the episode, Langley Burke, 11, and her brother Macguire Burke, 9, pitched their product Sticky, which is a rack for hanging up mini hockey sticks.

Langley and Macguire, the children of serial entrepreneur Tim Burke, pried $10,000 from the tender clutches of Arlene Dickinson, who has promised to help them out. Again, the pitch was tremendous.

The elder Burke in the past month has seen his business Affinio land $1.5 million in financing and place third at a pitching event at the leading U.S. Big Data conference. I’m certain none of it compares with the joy of what he saw last night.