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BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) — If it's a cold day, Belleville East High School students can be found sipping cappuccino or hot chocolate in the library.
The students don't bring the hot beverages from home. They purchase them from the Daily Grind — a cafe ran by students located in the school's library. Students do it all at the cafe, from ordering products to scheduling employees and serving customers.
"I have fun with it," said senior Marissa Muehlfeld, who is one of the two managers of the cafe.
Marissa said the hardest part of being manager is keeping people happy with their work schedules. Marissa and about 55 other seniors operate the cafe this school year as part of the marketing education cooperative program at Belleville East.
Students get hands-on experience running a business and marketing it, according to business teacher Mark Crask.
"The whole point is to see how a business runs," he said.
Crask teaches the marketing co-op class during first and second hour, and the students in his classes are scheduled to work in the cafe about once every two weeks. Even though Crask is teaching his classes, he can still monitor what's happening at the cafe through a video feed set up in his classroom.
"It's all part of what we do in the classroom," he said of the cafe. "All these concepts we learn now we can actually put into practice. Instead of just talking about it, we can see what happens."
The cafe opens at 8 a.m. every school day and gets hammered with customers after the buses arrive at the school around 8:15 a.m. The cafe is also busy between first and second hour. It closes about 10:30 a.m.
Crask said the cafe goes through about 150 cups a day.
"It's fun," said senior Tori Stevens.
"It's kind of nerve-racking sometimes."
"It's not easy," said senior Rae White, who wants to pursue a career in business management.
To run a successful business, Rae said employees have to work together. Tori said it's also important for workers to not get flustered when a rush hits.
"When the flush of customers start to come in, people count (money) wrong," she said.
The most popular items at the cafe recently included Flamin' Hot Cheetos and cappuccinos, Marissa said. East teachers can place orders at the cafe and student runners will bring their orders to their classrooms, Crask said.
To be a manager at the cafe, students in the co-op have to apply, and they are interviewed by Crask and library director Brad Schmidt.
"We try to make this as real as possible," Crask said.
The idea for the student-run cafe came from Schmidt when the library was relocated to where the cafeteria was previously five and a half years ago.
"The idea was to put something up here to bring them to the library," he said. Since the cafe opened, Schmidt said the library has "really become a place to congregate in the morning."
The seniors in the marketing co-op class start from scratch every year with the cafe, according to Crask. The first order of business is to survey about 700 of the 2,700 students to see what items they want the cafe to sell. Once the products are selected, the students determine the prices, which have to be affordable for their peers, Crask said.
The cafe opens around the middle of September and operates through the first week of May. Students who work at the cafe have to be quick with their addition and subtraction skills as there's no cash register.
"It's all done by hand — old school," Crask said. The students use cash boxes and calculators.
Students not only manage and run the cafe, but they are also responsible for promoting it. During the Christmas holidays, Crask said some of the students dressed up as Santa, Mrs. Claus and elves and sold hot chocolate.
"They've come up with a lot of really cool ideas," Crask said.
Any profits the cafe generates first goes to pay rent to the library — $200 a month — and the rest goes back to the school or to help families of students at East. Crask said the students in the marketing co-op decide where the revenue goes.
Some of the profits this year were used to provide 30 families at East with Thanksgiving dinners in November. Crask said a portion of the revenue pays for an employee appreciation banquet held at the end of the year for students in the marketing co-op as well. In addition to working at the cafe, students in the marketing co-op at East also have a job outside of school.
Some work at fast food establishments while others are hostesses at area restaurants. Crask said most of the students get out of school early in order to accommodate their work schedule.
"It's been a really good group this year," he said. "I'm so proud of them. They just do a wonderful job."
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Information from: Belleville News-Democrat, http://www.bnd.com
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