The Career and Technical Education department (CTE) is planning to launch a pop-up store in Town Center, where various items made by CTE students themselves will be sold. Set to run from November 19 to December 18, the store will be open on Fridays from 3-8 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“It’s our first time ever, I mean I haven’t heard of any other schools doing something like this, where it’s an actual retail space,” said Business teacher and assistant CTE advisor Janise Kim. “So I think that’s huge and the experience the students are getting, we’re already seeing how much they’re enjoying it. They’re excited.”
While the store was originally conceived by the business teachers, it now includes ASMHS as well as many other areas of CTE such as marketing, building and construction, graphic design, culinary, and agriculture. Because of this, a wide variety of products will be sold, including MHS apparel, wood designs, cutting boards, plants and herbs, keychains, gummies and more. These products will be created by CTE students, with the proceeds going to CTE scholarships awarded at the end of the year.
“I think it’s just a collaboration of the teachers trying to think of opportunities for our students to be exposed to real-world life examples in the workforce and to kind of connect that to what we try to teach them in the classes that we have,” said Kim. “So that’s kind of how the idea came about, and then it was just like ‘oh how can we get the rest of our CTE department involved,’ so it’s more collaborative effort with all the different students, not just business students.”
The pop-up store is an offshoot of the Trojan Trading Post on campus. The Trojan Trading Post—which previously held events such as Bananarama, Chocolate Day and Pumpkin Palooza—worked with CTE departments like the culinary department to sell products at school. From the pop-up store on campus, the trading post will transition from food-related products to a more general selection of wares.
“The best part was honestly the planning process,” said Senior Jaime Cortez. “Like I’m in charge of all the marketing materials, so even though we faced a lot of adversities in the beginning with our first two events, we kind of worked our way up.”
Students in the Business Co-Op elective are the student managers for the trading post on campus. Once the store is set up at the Town Center, student volunteers from other CTE departments will help to work at the store.
Because this is the first time CTE has done something like this, there were some challenges regarding inventory and communication. Making sure there were enough products, coordinating with other departments, and planning the events were all difficulties CTE faced.
“Yeah, so communicating with the other departments was kinda hard,” said Senior Annabelle Ink, a student in the Business Co-Op Elective. “Making sure that we were all on the same page. And then just making sure that we’re also getting products or things to have.”
The store will be set up where San Lorenzo was previously located. For more information, talk to Mrs. Kim in her classroom at L204.