When your high school business club – in this case, the Whitman-Hanson Regional High School DECA team – is preparing for their competition year and want to also give back to the community while learning about media relations, what is the best way to go about it?
Whitman Hanson brought the Toll House Cookie back to Whitman this week for a schoolwide fundraiser to support the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). The MDA fundraiser is part of a national initiative organized by DECA, the high school’s business club.
“Whitman-Hanson has always studied in history class, [that] Toll House cookies were discovered in Whitman,” said DECA member Maren Bowman. “It was made in Whitman, the company started in Whitman, so our school decided to make cookies. Mr. Desantes had a really good idea – he’s a really smart guy.”
That idea was to make the cookies and sell them at the school store during lunch blocs.
It’s a big mouthful to bite off – and all the better when it’s flavored by a local institution, the Toll House Cookie. But, as they say, experience is the best teacher, so the students got to work. And the result not only raised $250 in the one lunch hour for the MDA, it provided valuable experience in researching, organizing, manufacturing – OK, baking – marketing and sales.
MDA is the DECA partner charity, Desantes explained.
“They create incentives for us to raise money for the nonprofit. If we raise the most money in Massachusetts, we earn a spot to attend the national conference to participate in the learning sessions,” he said. “There are many adults in the building who like to support our fundraising efforts knowing that the proceeds are going to MDA.
“We decided this would be a good idea, because then we could get more students into the store, because all kids want to do is eat some good treats,” Bowman said with a laugh.
It was on.
Cookies were baked by about 18 students in the retail merchandising class, which Desantes runs, according to Bowman. Students largely did the baking at their homes, cranking out about 12 dozen cookies.
As she spoke on Tuesday, Dec. 19, she said the baking team were still making more.
Last week, Whitman-Hanson business students baked and sold Toll House chocolate chip cookies, which were invented nearly 100 years ago in Whitman, at the DEN – the high school’s student-run retail store. “With the rich tradition of the cookie in our hometown, the students created the event to bring awareness to the famous cookie during our busiest time of year,” W-H Business Teacher and DECA Advisor Thomas Desantes said.
A junior now, Bowman had a marketing class with Desantes in her freshman year.
“He’s such a good teacher, I decided to get involved in DECA during my junior year,” she said. “He always saw hope in me. He always encouraged me to take other classes – I took visual merchandising. I actually worked at the school store when I was a sophomore and it was really [a] good way to understand how to start a business, how to advertise things. The school store was just a very good example.”
They also learned how to think on their feet a bit, as the Monday, Dec. 18 storm knocked out power at some students’ homes and baking duties was transferred to the school’s culinary room.
When they did come out of the oven, the iconic cookies were packaged – two cookies each – to be given with a $30 or more purchase of Den merchandise or students were able to buy three cookies for a $5 donation during the lunch block on Wednesday, Dec. 20.
“We think we’re going to clear our cookies during the lunch blocs,” Bowman said when asked if preorders were taken.
DECA is an organization for students in high schools and colleges around the globe who want to learn business, management, entrepreneurship, finance, hospitality and marketing.
While Bowman said she is not aware to specific future projects this year, she said DECA has done senior gift baskets for parents to purchase through The Den.
“Desantes always has good ideas,” she said and it’s rubbed off. The gift baskets had been Bowman’s idea when she worked at the school store.
“Seventeen Whitman-Hanson students will be traveling to the Massachusetts DECA State Competition in the spring to present our donation to MDA leadership in hopes of earning a spot to attend the national DECA competition in April,” Desantes stated. “The DECA fundraiser is also a collaboration with the Retail Merchandising class, which is responsible for operating The Den.”
The project will also be a presentation in competition at DECA with Bowman in charge of presenting to the judges in March.
“This is a special category unlike the role plays where students can present on a project they worked on at School,” Desantes said. “This is for the category Project Management Sales Project. I chose the students based on their performance in role plays at the District competition (but they did not qualify to compete in State role plays). The concept is to create a project to increase sales at the school-based enterprise which for us is The Den. There are usually about 20 groups who compete in this category.
That presentation will include how well the cookie project did in actual operation, specifically how the students sold them, how the creative process worked and two other students will join her at states. Data will include how many cookies they sold, how many customers came into the store, including other requirements listed in a 21-page competition guide.
What will they call their project? We’ll have to stay tuned.
“We actually have been thinking about that for the past week,” Bowman said. “Today, we took pictures as a good example of advertising the cookies.”
The Express was invited to cover the initiative to demonstrate to the community the creative ideas our students are executing this year, and provide insight on how business seeks media coverage. Desantes also offered photo opportunities of the cookies being sold or even prepared in the school culinary arts center as media experience for photography students.