SHS Entrepreneurship - adapting and succeed during 2020 pandemic

The entrepreneurship elective available to juniors and seniors at Simsbury High School revolves its curriculum around the formation of student run businesses designed to raise money for specific charities of their choosing. Even with the effects of the pandemic hindering in school learning, here is how this year's entrepreneurship class was able to raise over 600 dollars for the Farmington Red Cross.

Prior to distance learning, the class was divided into small companies comprised of 4-6 students. We all had the same goal: design and develop a product, raise money from shareholders, purchase said products, and eventually try to sell as many as possible and earn a profit. When we moved to online school, the class came together and made the decision to consolidate into one larger company, unbranded Lanyards. We designed our lanyards, wrote a business plan, and chose the Red Cross as our charity in the first weeks of distance learning.

Organization was our biggest obstacle. Since the class was restricted to online learning and no in person interactions could be made, assigning roles to everyone was difficult. In the end, the company appointed a management team consisting of five members (Tyler Nguyen, Marketing manager; Erik Winkler, sales manager; Evan Wilson, finance manager; Olivia Coutinho, operations manager) as well as assigning Joao Galafassi to be the CEO. Shipping and handling our lanyards was another obstacle since we wanted to follow health precautions and minimize in-person handling as best we could. We originally decided to use Venmo, an online payment system, to receive payments and used mailing services to send the product to our customers in a safe and efficient way. However, as quarantine continued and the laws regarding social distancing eased up, we also provided a cash payment option. Customers would leave cash in a sales person's mailbox and the money would be transferred by the sales person to an online form and sent to the company venmo account. At that point, the sales person would report the sale and a lanyard would be shipped to the customers address.

During the selling period, marketing manager, Tyler Nguyen, sold a lanyard to a member of the local Rotary Club. This opened up the opportunity for members of unbranded Lanyards to give a sales presentation during the Rotary Club weekly meeting. CEO Joao Galafassi and marketing manager Tyler Nguyen represented unbranded Lanyards during the Rotary Club meeting. 22 lanyards were sold during the meeting.

In the end, we sold over 275 lanyards and managed to raise $641.25 for the Red Cross. Additionally, we received a $400 donation which raised the total amount of money raised to over $1,000 dollars. The top sellers of the class were Tyler Nguyen (51 sales), Erik Winkler (39 sales), and Joao Galafassi (25 sales).

"I am enormously proud of how the students of Unbranded Lanyards pulled together to operate the company despite being shut down by the pandemic. It demonstrated great entrepreneurial resolve; a trait we aim to teach at Simsbury High School” - SHS Business teacher Douglas Nielson.