Six took on the challenge and are now running a profitable business. "It was filled up this morning and it's already gone just one day" No one said running your own business is easy and students at Cart High School in Clovis are discovering that first hand since taking over the vending machine business on campus.
Ae Thao, Student: "Every day we have to get up early or use our own time to come in and stock the food."
Six students from the economics and finance lab volunteered for the project researching what machines to buy, actually putting them together and keeping them stocked with healthy snacks.
Anton Savelyev, Student: "We had a survey out here of items that we thought fit the regulations and other items the students picked and we stocked those more; we had two slots for Rice Krispy Treats because those go out real fast."
Bruce Hoffman, Cart Teacher: "They figured out the pricing, they figured out the product and they figured out the machines it was all theirs 100%."
Also theirs are the problems like machines breaking down and vandalism.
Brandon Trafton, Student: "TJ was out here one day like for an hour trying to fix the machines it was just real tedious."
"We would never tell them yes or no. What about this? What about this? I was terrible cause I ask question after question cause I want them to think."
Think they did. Every decision was made by the group, with their teacher only providing the guidance.
"It gives me an idea of how to do accounting because I want to major in accounting, so it gives me an idea of how to do accounting, the numbers, the cash flows and everything."
Brandon Trafton, Student: "We actually had to act on things really quickly and just deal with problems as they came; It was kind of a good perspective in terms of you can plan and plan but we cannot predict or know the future."
Just two months after opening up for business the students are turning a profit. Money that will go to scholarships for cart students.
"They've taken something and made it a positive for everyone. They learned something from it the schools benefitted and it's a win-win and they love it."
Aside from the scholarships, the students hope to have enough money by May to pay back the school the $5000 they borrowed to start up the business.
