Recently, many new items have been added to the DePaul Prep Spirit Shop including a Lululemon Scuba, new hoodies and updated plaid pajama pants with new colors.
Spirit Shop Coordinator Kristine Prugh started working at DePaul Prep in the August of this school year. For the first three months she took the time “to really understand what was selling well and what people wanted to see” while also taking into account the small area she has to work with. Of the around ten or so newly added items, she says the Scuba has been the most popular with other sweatshirts following.
The additions to the shop don’t end there. A new Entrepreneurship Club, started by Operations Coordinator Joe Kvoriak, aims to increase student input in spirit shop designs while simultaneously teaching about the marketing and design process of a business.
Kvoriak decided to create the club after noticing the lack of student involvement in the shop. He decided to change that because he believes that “as a school our mission should be to get students involved in as many aspects of the school as we can.” He also wanted to teach high schoolers about entrepreneurship because he has taught entrepreneurship classes at colleges and believes that those “skills should be introduced at the high school level.”
Juniors Sophie Kasper and Stella Corotis have been with the club since the beginning, when Kvoriak introduced the idea to them following a Money Matters meeting. Money Matters is a club that focuses on teaching students about investments and ways to manage their money. Kvoriak had gone into any club he thought would have students interested in business. Besides Money Matters, he had gone into Women in Leadership meetings and Art club meetings, among others.
Kasper and Corotis jumped at the opportunity because “business has been something that we’ve been increasingly interested in” according to Kasper. They saw the entrepreneurship club as an extension of the Money Matters club, which would help them grow more in their knowledge and experience of business, particularly because they are both looking to potentially major in it during college.
At the first meeting, there were around 50 students, but now around 20-25 have stayed involved. The club is made up of several committees, such as the products committee and marketing committee. The marketing group is working on social media accounts for the shop to broaden the reach and figuring out what photos to post and what the voice of the account will be. The products committee works on coming up with designs and the types of items while the marketing committee works on the marketing of the products through social media and Schoology.
Prugh described the production process as long, due to involving several steps. She looks at vendors to find the best pricing and quality, makes sure to use DePaul Prep colors, and ensures the logos are used properly. This process takes about six weeks.
When ordering a product, she gets a smaller quantity at first to see how well it sells. The initial order size is around 60-100 in all sizes. She thinks one of the best parts about the shop now having a specific coordinator is that she has “the time to look at the numbers and order smaller quantities and bring it in more frequently, just to make sure it sells well.”
Pertaining to the Spirit Shop, the club recently sent a google form out to all students to see what they would like to see in the shop. Around 170 students responded with what colors they wanted, opinions on logos, and more.
After the club looked through the forms, they came up with products that resonated most with students. They also have looked at samples of sweatshirts and sweatpants to see what they like the best, as well.
So far, most of the work has been done outside of meetings, where members have designed the Google form, created first drafts of sweatshirts and looked at the samples.
Kvoriak shared that groups have met in person based on their particular needs. He then “‘reach[es] out once a week and says ‘Hey guys, do you want to meet next week?’” Kvoriak likes this model because “it’s very student driven…and that’s kind of the spirit I want.” This also aligns with his main goal, which is “for the students to really have ownership of the Spirit Shop [and] to learn some business skills that might help put them ahead of other students as they leave our institution.” He reiterated that ,though he wants the shop to have student involvement, he wants the students to keep working with Prugh, because she has been valuable to the growth of the club.
Corotis’s favorite part of being a part of the club and working with the Spirit Shop is that it’s “a great way to see…the production side of anything and how clothing is made.”
Kasper agrees with Corotis, saying she likes “seeing how the product team also works with the marketing team and [how] they kind of go hand in hand.”
Because the club is only a few months old, no products from the club have been sold in the spirit shop yet, but Corotis and Kasper hope products will be released soon.
Kvoriak said his hope is for a student-designed product to be released at the end of the year.
Prugh is excited about the club because of the wide student interest it shows. She said the goal is for a new product designed by the students to soon be available in the shop.
In terms of the future, she most wants to get students even more involved and wants to have more seasonal and exclusive products, like the recent Saint Patrick’s Day shirt. Her dream is to “sync up new products to [home football] spirit theme days so if it’s a Hawaiian night we bring in something that we can sell.” She also wants to sync up products with fundraisers, such as having a pink sweatshirt for breast cancer awareness.
Prugh’s favorite part of working at the Spirit Shop is “the energy” and the fact that “everyone here is so positive and really happy to be here.” She has so far “had a great response to the new things that we’ve brought in” and hopes the Shop grows even more.
