Bliss Through Business by Trent

Bliss Through Business by Trent - November 2019 Scholarship Essay

If you were to poll the congregate high school population, you would likely come to a not-so surprising conclusion: High School students eat lunch. This same poll with some modifications would also lead you to another conclusion: students often don't really like school lunches. Personally, I know people who don't eat lunch at all due to the lack of quality food choices in the cafeteria. In our school, however, we don't really see a high influx of students not eating during their lunch period. This is, at least in part, due to the availability of a second source of food for students during lunch periods, which I happen to manage.

As a member of the Junior and Senior class of Piper High School, I’ve helped lead and manage the student operated snack store as part of our application-level class, Applied Business Development. The store is named “Pirates Bay,” since we are, of course, the Piper Pirates. In my role here, I lead staff meetings, conferences with school administration, and am the chief contributor to our company's marketing announcements, in which I both wrote and was the announcer in itself. My position has helped the store internally, by introducing new products which have turned out to be huge money makers for our little stand. Outside of the business, I like to believe that we are offering ourselves as a service to our community. Like I mentioned earlier, a lot of people do not enjoy school lunches, and while some will bare through it, others just deny themselves lunch altogether in the absence of other options. With the school having the benefit of a student-ran store, students are able to purchase snacks and drinks that they would prefer much more than a school lunch, while still falling under the same health guidelines. By having Pirates Bay open during school lunches, we’re able to offer food and nutrition for our particular niche of the student body. Especially during exam season, it seems that everyone wants to stop by to pick up a pack of gum or two for all of their stressful tests ahead of them.

So, if you were to conduct one final survey, this time of only the students within Piper High School, you would be hard pressed not to see my influence in providing students with their favorite alternate choices in food once lunchtime rolls around once more.