Deca System Is Turning Out Smart Cookies
It was Friday, the end of first quarter at Sandpoint High School. Most kids had left for the day, and teachers were finishing their grades.
My daughter had traded vehicles with me, so I took a different route through the school to get to the pickup. An aroma hit me as I was about to head out the door. Lurching to a stop, I followed my nose into big Brad Judy’s DECA classroom. One of his students, Lesli Selle, stood near the window carefully scooping up warm chocolate-chip cookies from metal sheets.
In its third year at SHS, the DECA (Distributive Education Club of America) does more than sell tasty cookies. It provides 34 students hands-on instruction in marketing, salesmanship, advertising and basic business practices. In addition, the program inspires them to expand their horizons and fulfill their organizational talents far beyond a normal classroom setting. And that’s what CEO Judy’s students thrive on.
I pulled out a dollar and traded it for a sack of goodies. Chocolate dripped down my fingers as I broke off pieces and stuffed them into my mouth.
Three cookies later, I was hooked on both Otis Spunkmeyer treats and big Brad’s class of young entrepreneurs. I’d seen their creative spelling on butcher paper signs around the school, advertising cookies and lattes, but this was my first view of the DECA DOGS in action.
As cookies came from the oven, some students quickly dropped three apiece into small paper bags. Others dumped change into a huge plastic money bag as customers came by for the day’s mouth-watering fix.
Besides selling treats at school, several first- and second-year members have set up their portable concession at games and special events around town.
A couple weeks ago, for example, a crew consisting of Brooke Duty, Stacey Sloma, Renee Viola and Thea Dreisbach hauled oven, latte machine and store-bought snacks to the Coldwater Creek warehouse sale. As thousands of bargain hunters from around the Inland Northwest waited in long lines to grab the good buys, the DECA team tantalized shoppers’ taste buds by baking fresh batches of cookies and brewing up steaming lattes.
“It went great,” Duty said. “They smelled them and bought.”
When the weekend concession project ended, DECA members lugged home a plastic bag filled with almost $700 cash.
After expenses, the weekend’s project added a significant amount to the group’s goal of $20,000 for next spring’s state and national competitions in Boise and Anaheim, Calif., respectively. “We’ve already raised $7,000, and that’s more than we made all last year,” Judy boasted.
Besides their business ventures, students like Tessa Bennett spend time on the phone or at the computer laying the groundwork for civic projects.
The SHS senior has arranged for Spokane Chiefs hockey tickets so that special education students from the high school and Sandpoint Middle School can enjoy an evening out with their friends. More than 20 students and their chaperones will attend a Dec. 11 game and meet the players.
Bennett also contacted local businesses to help pay for pizza and transportation, and addressed the Bonner County Schools board of trustees, seeking the go ahead for DECA to establish a full-fledged student store at the high school.
In addition to Bennett’s activities, senior Ryan Farwell is creating a Web page for the group and Dreisbach is developing a newsletter.
And there’s more to come, according to Judy, a virtual idea machine. As for me, I’m glad I was lured into that classroom by that powerful aroma.
I savor the flavor of those cookies and my newfound knowledge of yet another group of young people with a sense of purpose.
, DataTimes MEMO: Marianne Love is journalism adviser for Sandpoint High School and an author who lives in Sandpoint. Panhandle Pieces appears every Saturday. The column is shared among several North Idaho writers.