Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy’s LAUNCH (Learning And Understanding Nature through Creativity and Hard work) classes recently started a snack business as part of their learning process. The goal was to make money to donate to the school.
In addition to thinking through all the aspects of running a business, students also discussed where they wanted to donate the money to around the school.
LAUNCH students, along with their teacher Stevens McClure and Lower and Middle School Principal Dr. Jessica Kyanka-Maggart, identified that there was a high demand for midday snacks in the middle and upper schools. After researching the business and products, pricing them, and using a school grant, they were able to get their business off the ground. In addition to hands-on learning, they can’t wait to use their earnings to give back to the school.
“The first thing we want to do with the money is to buy dividers for the upstairs boys bathroom, and we have other things we want to do too. But first we have to earn the money,” said third grader Eli Flacks.
In addition to giving back, students are learning basic business skills, including recording their profit and daily income, and basic spreadsheet use, including creating formulas and graphs to chart their daily income. Students learned about marketing their business by creating posters and writing this news article about it.
“Students also work on soft skills like greeting customers and thanking them when they purchase. We calculated the profitability of the snacks we thought about selling and focused on sourcing the snacks that would bring us the most money,” McClure said.
The LAUNCH group is made up of second-through-fifth grade students. While each grade works at different times on the business, the students are all working toward the same goal and support each other’s work. All grade levels made posters to help advertise the snack shop around the school, and students from each grade are involved in selling the snacks.
Each grade works on age-appropriate work. Fourth and fifth graders created more complicated formulas in their spreadsheets to advance their skills, whereas second and third graders created more basic spreadsheets to learn how to track inventory and sales.
The mobile snack shop has wheels on it, so it can be moved easily around the school. The shop sells a variety of snacks and Gatorade during passing periods, when middle and upper school students are moving between classes.
“We like that it is on wheels so we can move it to a storage area when we’re not using it,” said third grader Isaac Udell.
“We are excited to earn money and to give back to the school,” Flacks said. “We knew we were filling a need because middle school students were hungry and wanted snacks.”
Students plan to keep selling snacks in the near future, and they will be learning along the way.
By Caden Field, HBHA third grader, and Jane Blumenthal Martin, HBHA Director of Communications