Students learning business by serving coffee

By CALEB NELSON

Adair County Free Press

Students in Nodaway Valley High School’s entrepreneurship class are learning on a firsthand basis this semester as they’re studying in a hands on way what it’s like to run a small business.

Students presented their case studies to Stacie Hull, Executive Director of Greenfield Chamber/Main Street and Development, Friday morning. One presentation came from a group working on a tournament for the video game Fort Nite. The other was for a community technical support company.

Instructor Andrea Green describes a coffee shop the group has organized at the school as the “vehicle” for which they’re able to dive into these other business areas.

The entrepreneurship class developed the business model for the coffee shop and the Future Business Leaders of America students are the ones running it on a weekly basis.

The coffee shop, which serves Pammel Park Coffee, the same coffee served on the square at The Corner, is open only on Mondays, as to not compete with The Corner, because The Corner is closed Mondays.

The class visited The Corner this month as well to learn about small businesses and what it takes to maintain one.

“The ultimatum was that we either do a bunch of book work in class or we do this,” said Chandler Green, one of the students involved with the coffee shop. “We chose to make coffee. We started with the large process of trying different recipes. Also, because we’re at the school, we have to meet Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requirements. That takes a lot of time.”

Mason Menefee admitted that government regulations were an unexpected hurdle for he and the other young entrepreneurs.

“I thought we could just do whatever we wanted,” Menefee said.

The group was very pleased, however, with the customer service they received from Matt Hupton of Pammel Park.

“The guy comes down, helps us set it up. A lot of people here are used to Folgers or the cheap stuff, so coming here, they say this tastes completely different,” said Karley Shannon. “It’s better quality, and when we’ve gone to the different recipes, we’ve realized we’ve made non coffee drinkers coffee drinkers.”

Andrea Green said it has been fun this semester to see one of the teams of students in charge of the coffee cart come early in the morning and put themselves out in front of others selling coffee. That’s not to mention the risk and trial and error developing the business brought with it.

“There has been no guarantee of success,” Green said. “The kids have pioneered a school-based enterprise and it’s been great to watch.”