BATON ROUGE - At 5 years old, Zein Clayton sometimes persuaded his mother to take him to the snowball stand two or three times a day.

Ten years later, he opened his first Meltdown Snowdown - his own snowball stand.

Now Clayton has two permanent stands and one mobile stand.

"I always had a love for snowballs, ever since I was a little child," Clayton said.

He also knew early that he wanted to be an entrepreneur. With encouragement from his mother, he's made it happen.

Clayton, who is from Addis, opened the first stand in Brusly. The other permanent stand is in Baton Rouge.

He said he wants to welcome teens into the workforce.

"Hiring different teenagers, people around my age, and just allowing them to get employment at a young age -  I know this would be a cool first job," he said.

He told WBRZ they also support community heroes, providing free snowballs to first responders.

Clayton still has big plans.

"Before the end of this year, I want to have 5 locations in the state of Louisiana, I am also planning my biggest expansion yet, this year and it will be out of state," he said.