Student Led Blazer Stop

The Blazer Stop is a student store at Gardner Edgerton High School. This store is student led and part of the Career and Technical Education curriculum that gives students an idea of what they want to pursue after high school.

This year, there are eighteen students in the Marketing Applications class who are the workforce behind The Blazer Stop. Jaylene Freeman, GEHS Marketing Applications Teacher, leads the class but allows the students to drive the direction of their store. The Blazer Stop collaborates heavily with DECA (the marketing club) advisors

and the groups share curriculum and ideas with each other. Each one of the eighteen students have a specific role to carry out the day-to-day operations. The roles are divided into five teams: Promotions, Finance, Apparel, Food and Beverage, and Human Resources.

Promotions handles displays for the store, creates and posts social media content and plans promotional events.

Finance is working on updating and tracking inventory, analyzing data, making deposits and communicating with USD 231 Finance Director, Jeremy McFadden, to bring debit card transactions to the store.

The Apparel team is creating new products to be sold and are branching out to pre-order sales for special events at Gardner Edgerton High School.

The Food and Beverage team has brought a lot of change this year. They have contacted Coca-Cola about the addition of a large cooler to sell bottled drinks. The team has also met with Director of Nutrition Services, Amy Droegemeier, and GEHS Kitchen Manager, Brenda Cloud to discuss compliance with nutritional guidelines. Cloud allows The Blazer Stop to order product through her which greatly benefits the program from both a cost

and convenience perspective.

Human Resources is responsible for scheduling students to work, providing training as well as collaboration with other programs at GEHS.

“I take pride in each student having a role and it really holds them accountable,” said Freeman.

The Blazer Stop is open Wednesday through Friday from 7:25 a.m. – 7:55 a.m. and Blue Days during lunch. The Blazer Stop workers are focused on boosting traffic to increase sales. Items for sale at the store include coffee, iced coffee, Dippin’ Dots, Blazer Apparel, muffins, gum, school supplies, and

more. Currently the store averages about thirty customers per morning.

Another aspect of the program is learning to collaborate. Presently they are collaborating with the Booster Club to sell booster products. The Blazer Stop is always seeking others to work with; other collaborations have included Forging Forward Design+Apparel, GEYCP, TOPS Program, and construction classes at the Advanced Technical Center.

All of these programs are GEHS programs and provide a great opportunity for the students to keep items in house. Students have really taken pride and ownership in this program. “They are not all friends when they start this class but they are family by the end,” Freeman said when asked about what she is proud of. “They are part of a legacy that will continue long after they graduate and they get to pass it down to next year’s students.”

TaeVheon Alcorn, GEHS Senior said, “I have learned that with teamwork, communication, a call to action and motivation, anything can be achieved regardless of how difficult the situation is.”

There are some amazing things in the works to make The Blazer Stop bigger and better. Selling food items created by the Baking & Pastry and Culinary Arts students is at the top of that list. The collaboration with the TOPS programs could eventually lead to coffee deliveries to teachers in the building. The Food and Beverage team will be making holiday drinks throughout the season and the Promotions team will be making commercials to be shown on announcements. The students in the Marketing Applications class want

to pursue business and or marketing in college and after, running The Blazer Stop gives them an opportunity to explore their passion.

Patrick Beane, Senior at Gardner Edgerton High School, said,” This class is different from others because you are actually able to learn about marketing and entrepreneurship by doing real world things.”

TaeVheon Alcorn will be majoring

at the University of Kansas in finance and creating a business. “Because of this class, I have learned significantly about finance, marketing, project management, and how to operate a business,” said Alcorn.

At the beginning of the year, Mrs. Freeman asked her students to create a mission statement. The Blazer Stop students chose, For Blazers, By Blazers, because at the end of the day we want as many people involved and benefiting from The Blazer Stop as possible.