WV group honored for marketing

Selling healthier food to youth can pay off.

A little creative marketing this year attracted more sales of nutritional snacks by the West Valley High School DECA store.

The DECA group recently won $1,000 in a Spokane Regional Health District challenge that promoted this approach in schools.

The group did extra promotion, such as offering a special on fruit smoothies with two straws for Valentine’s Day and decorating its store to feel more like a club with lighting and entertainment.

The West Valley DECA students involved were Chandler Olinger, Kim Loberg, Dustin Read, Treavor O’Neill, Brad Eylar, Cameron Wieber, David Luden and Mike Helmberger.

Their DECA adviser is Cheryl Perry.

With a ban on selling sugary drinks and snacks in schools, DECA leaders need creativity to offset lost profits from soda and candy sales, said Heleen Dewey, health district physical activity and nutrition program coordinator.

“One reoccurring theme we heard was that DECA stores were really going to struggle if they could no longer sell soda and candy,” she said.

“West Valley did it right. They did really creative things, such as, instead of just calling it the DECA store, they called it Club DECA and made it have a club feel with black lights and music. Their marketing was phenomenal.”

Under this challenge that began in the fall, DECA members were encouraged to complete a research manual on school nutrition policies and the impact on stores. The manual would be judged, and a winning DECA store granted $1,000 to supplement income from potential loss of revenue while making changes.

The WVHS group completed a student survey and designed an educational and promotional plan to meet the challenge of marketing nutritional foods to high school students. The plan included information on the benefits of good nutrition.

The WV DECA students taught the lesson plan to freshman physical education classes.

Because the group’s survey indicated that most students never pay attention to the nutritional aspects of food choices, the group selected a campaign designed to get students into the store to see the variety of tasty, economical and convenient food available, Perry said.

“Our first project was redesigning the store to give it a club feel,” Perry said. “We used dark, midnight blue paint, added black lights with black-light paint graffiti, strobe lights, rope lights, and we installed a flat-screen TV with a DVD/VHS player to show music videos, sports films, movies and commercials.”

They also introduced new products each month, ran specials such as Munchie Monday with a granola bar/trail mix and rewarded loyal customers using punch cards.

The DECA Healthy Store Marketing Campaign, held by Spokane Regional Health District, was in partnership with the Healthy Families Active Kids Coalition.

Other partners included Tidyman’s and Spokane Public Schools, Dr. Bob Lutz, and the Washington State Dairy Council.

Capitol idea at Opportunity

Opportunity Elementary students held a simulated congressional hearing on Tuesday with the help of elected officials and community leaders. A total of 60 students gave expert testimony on issues relating to the Constitution.

Five groups of fifth-grade students responded to questions posed by a 14-member panel. Although the general topic was the Constitution, each group was assigned a specific topic, including the three branches of government, protection of people’s rights, and the responsibilities of citizens in a democracy.

The fifth-grade teaching team of Karen Carpenter, Tanya Formonek and Dina Murphy planned the simulated congressional hearing.

ICB awards scholarships

Seniors from University, East Valley, West Valley and Central Valley high schools were recognized by Intermountain Community Bank of Washington’s Spokane Valley branch for outstanding commitment to community service last week.

Four students were selected to receive $500 scholarships.

The ICB scholarship winners are Laine Anderson from University High, who will attend University of Washington; Alyssa Christenson from Central Valley, who plans to attend Cottey College in Missouri; and Kelsey Mae Hentges from East Valley and Douglas McManaway from West Valley, both planning to attend the University of Washington.

EV kids walk the walk

East Valley fifth-graders walked for their health and earned $4,000 to benefit their schools’ health and fitness classes in the Move It program sponsored by Asuris Northwest Health.

Asuris presented the $4,000 check in awards assemblies at Skyview and East Farms elementary schools on Wednesday and Thursday.

Four hundred East Valley students logged 21,114,473 steps, or about 10,500 miles. Fifth-grade students at East Farms, Skyview, and Continuous Curriculum School logged the most steps.

“Our goal was to help students develop healthy habits and an active lifestyle,” said Mary McWilliams, president of Asuris Northwest Health.

The “Move It” program was designed to motivate students to be active every day. Students wore pedometers and recorded the number of daily steps.

The program was administered by physical education and homeroom teachers. Asuris Northwest Health supplied each student with a Move It backpack, a water bottle and a pedometer.

The Move It program included personal and team challenges as well as role models such as Sacajawea, Daniel Boone, Johnny Appleseed and other early explorers.

Asuris Northwest Health offers health-care coverage for Eastern Washington residents.