Brooke Taylor and Yasmine Powers
Staff Writers
Did you know we have a school store? The store is open twice a week during activity period, on Mondays and Wednesdays. The club meets twice a month and decides what to stock in the store. They currently sell Gatorade, water, gum, chips, Chewy granola bars, lollipops, and candy.
The club officers responsible for running the store are juniors Kaitlyn Gera, Kelvin Huynh, Rachel Batizfalvi, and Amandeep Kaur. When the store is open it is run by the members of the club and it is overseen by one of the club’s officers, who are also the store’s managers, and one of the club’s advisors. “We make a calendar and when people come to the meeting they can sign up for what days they want to work,” said Gera.
The club also decides how to price these items. In fact, this was the topic of their first meeting of this year. “We are also taxed on anything we sell, so we also have to include taxes when considering the final prices of everything in the store,” said one of the club’s advisers, Terese Eaton. The club buys most of their items in bulk from grocery stores and then they resell them inside the store in order to make a profit. “It’s easier to buy in bulk, so we’ll go to BJ’s or Sam’s Club and we’ll buy the items and then we exchange the receipt for money we have in the club,” said Gera.
The sales have raised some money, but not a large amount because the store has some restrictions, like it cannot be open during lunches because the students already have food available to buy from the cafeteria. Many students that are a part of the club also have different academic and athletic obligations, making it sometimes difficult to workout a proper schedule. All the money they gain from their sales, aside from taxes, goes back to the club. They haven’t raised quite enough money yet to do anything with it, but this will be a topic discussed at their next club meeting.
In the future, the club would like to expand the inventory in the store to selling clothing. “They’d like to put the money back into the store, moving forward,” said Rice. The officers also look to possibly open the store another day of the school week during activity period. “As the year goes by, maybe we’ll add another day because we know a lot of people stay after school, so it may be beneficial for them to buy a snack,” said Gera.
Corporate Communications established the store, but in 2016, the club took over. Last year, students became quite involved during the second half of the school year, now they run it almost entirely independently. “It was the second half of the year that they ran [the store],” said the club’s other adviser, Stephanie Rice.
