As school days grow shorter and the inevitability of graduation and the “real world” looms upon the horizon, the seniors find themselves caught in a whirlwind of annual school activities, condensed to make up for the time lost due to unforeseen circumstances that have marked Poveda’s fiftieth year. Despite the loss of certain activities that we had been looking forward to, one senior school project that we’ve been aware of since grade school finally came to fruition two weeks ago, November 24: The Shoppe.

When we were grade school students, The Shoppe was just a regular recess and lunch fixture, a source of interesting goodies and thrilling knick knacks to spend our allowance on. As we grew older, The Shoppe became less of a fixation and more of a constant presence at the back of our minds and by the side of the covered walk. The realization that we’d eventually be the ones behind that black wooden frame came along with all the other responsibilities and duties we’d have to perform as seniors the moment the school year started. This would be our year, and this would be our year with the Shoppe.

The Shoppe was introduced to us towards the later part of the second trimester as our test for sessions seven and eight. The introduction was brief, but very concise. The Shoppe was to be an application of everything we learned over the school year. It would be up to us to make the Shoppe a success by putting into practice the principles that we so far have only experienced in theory. With a limited budget and just two days for each section to apply almost two trimesters worth of lessons, the seniors set to work.

With a seed money of just 6000 PHP for the whole batch, there were plenty of ideas on how to budget it. The majority of the money would, of course, go to the purchase of the items we would be selling, while the rest would be left for advertising. The biggest issue at the start, of course, would be deciding what to sell. From plastic balloons to school supplies, everyone had ideas, but it was understood that the seniors couldn’t just pick whatever they wanted. Each class understood that this was a serious activity that required thought and rationality. Everyone wanted to make a profit.

“It started with the products,” according to Maddy Gutierrez of 4C. “We had to decide what goods to get so they'd appeal to the grade schoolers. We also needed to advertise well - we'd send out GM’s to our Povedan friends the nights before and we had the video. We got to apply budgeting and pricing, deciding on how to spend the seed money wisely and pricing the goods to be sold so that we'd have just enough profit.”

Nichole Valdecantos and Paige Que of 4B both agreed that the most challenging difficulty they had to face was choosing the items to sell. This challenged them because they needed to find the perfect resources that would greatly benefit them. Another difficulty they encountered was having to plan and arrange so many things in such a short amount of time. The economic concepts they were able to apply were the concepts of opportunity cost and marketing strategy. They understood that the items they would pick to sell were a great factor in gaining the best profit. They also understood that advertisement was a major key and that this had to be done. Another concept they were able to apply is the division of human labor – they needed to divide the tasks among the students equally.

Nichole said, “From this experience, I learned that in order to succeed in a large venture, I need everyone’s cooperation because I would not be able to do it on my own. It is also equally important that everyone has a task to play where each one does it right because what one does affects everyone else.”

In the end, the items were sold, and the seniors left not only with a profit but also real life lessons learned. Theories taught in class are experienced in real life and the seniors got their first real taste of entrepreneurship. Despite the learning pains, they enjoyed the experience. Tricia Severino of 4C said, “It was a fun and challenging experience. We were able to apply what we learned from Economics like opportunity cost and competition, and get to know how it feels like to run our own business.”

Although the Shoppe is now over for the seniors, this activity has awakened the budding entrepreneur inside all of us and we have bigger, brighter things to look forward to in the future.