News Photo by Temi Fadayomi Alpena High School Senior and Store Manager of Campus Closet Madi Meyer, Junior and Officer of AHS DECA chapter Aili Lee, and Senior, DECA Officer, and Campus Closet worker Olivia Miller pose inside of Campus Closet inside the Alpena High School on Thursday.

ALPENA — Alpena High School’s Campus Closet was among 728 school-based enterprises achieving gold-level certification for the 2023-2024 school year. The accomplishment will be recognized by DECA Inc. — an organization for students formerly known as Distributive Education Clubs of America — at the International Career Development Conference in Anaheim, Calif., on April 27 through 30.

A school-based enterprise is an entrepreneurial operation in a school setting that provides goods and services to meet the needs of the market. At Alpena High School, Campus Closet has a variety of products for the students and faculty, including apparel, accessories, gifts, snacks, and more.

“Campus Closet is where we can sell different products to the students and the staff,” AHS Senior, DECA Officer, and Campus Closet worker Olivia Miller said. “We have all kinds of products besides just merchandise too. We have glasses, water bottles, keychains, stickers on some different gifts, stuff like balloons, flowers, all that kind of thing.”

In addition to being a store for students, Campus Closet is also run primarily by students who have marketing and entrepreneurial interests. According to Miller, the store acts as a lab for students, providing them with hands-on experience that could benefit them in their career paths.

“It’s kind of like our lab,” Miller said. “It gives us a chance to work in a more hands-on, professional environment that is going to prepare us for the future.”

According to AHS Senior and Campus Closet Store Manager Madi Meyer, the store is operated by five students at a time and no more than ten customers are allowed in at once.

Students working in Campus Closet have the opportunity to work a range of jobs and have new responsibilities from working the floor and restocking items, working the register and checking people out, or other tasks like managing or advertising.

“Each lunch, we have five people running the store,” Meyer said. “We have four of the normal people in the class, and then we have a store manager. We have two people on the register, a person working the floor, a person working securities … We also have an apparel manager who orders everything for us merchandise-wise, and then we have a new position this year, which is a delivery manager. So for flowers and balloons, they will order the delivery.”

AHS Junior and DECA Officer Aili Lee said, “We also have our assistant store manager who primarily works on the web store, getting all that ready for the public, a student that specifically works mostly on social media, and making sure people know what’s going on and promoting sales, and a beverage manager, who does all the Pepsi orders.”

According to the students involved in Campus Closet, the experience has been both fun and educational, providing them with the necessary experience and skills to pursue their career interests.

“It’s given me a lot of skills,” Miller said. “It’s helped me get more opportunities in my daily life with jobs and different programs that I’m trying to do. So, it’s definitely been very beneficial for me and fun.”

“It’s also been a lot of fun for me,” Meyer said. “I’ve learned a lot of leadership skills through that, and a lot of customer service things, while just having a good time.”

Campus Closet will be receiving gold-level certification from the DECA’s School-based Enterprise Certification Program recognizing the business for its outstanding achievements. Student-based enterprises can be certified at three levels: bronze, silver, or gold.

The students involved in Campus Closet are currently fundraising to help pay for their trip to California for their certification. Anyone who wishes to help fund the project can purchase products from the store or donate directly to a Gofundme which can be found on any of their social media pages. They are also actively seeking partnerships with local businesses.