The Lake City Secondary’s marketing 11/12 class has its first batch of Talon Bags ready for sale this week.
The class has decided to donate proceeds from their Talon Bags company to Kurtis Olson, a fellow students and kick boxer, who recently had to have surgery in Vancouver, for a serious foot injury. The funds will help to defray the cost of his more than two-month stay at Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.
With help from their teacher Shannon Rerie, the marketing class formed Talon Bags under the provincial Junior Achievers company program.
The class elected Chloe Storoschuk as president; Ty Feldinger as vice-president of production; Nathan Snowball is vice-president of finance; Emerson Wiebe is vice-president of marketing; Joey Helminger as vice-president of human resources; and Logan Lewis as vice-president of information technology.
The 21 students in the class were given nomination forms and anonymous voting sheets on which to vote for the executive, Chloe says.
She says Lake City Secondary donated $500 for their initial start-up costs and the rest of the investment funds are from businesses around the community such as Bessey Trucking.
The class initially purchased 100 bags from Rush Imprints in Ontario with the fundraising goal of $1,000 and will buy more bags if sales go well.
“When creating our name Talon Bags the whole class brainstormed together to create a logo and name that would uniquely represent our product and still have a connection to our school,” Chloe says.
Ty designed the logo which features a stylized eagle in flight.
“Our school logo is the Falcons so we believed it was a good idea to link our company and our school,” Ty says. “Our supplier had a silk screening process that has shown to be very effective.”
He says the bags are 14 by 17 inches and made of 100 per cent cotton.
They are designed with a draw string that can be set up as a back pack to carry books, gym equipment, shoes and other items, Ty says.
Each vice-president works with a team of students to have the bags individualized with a tie dye design, promote the sale of the bags and otherwise manage and further the interests of the company.
The marketing class students learn about the financial and organizational skills of starting and running a business, Rerie says.
Various business owners from the community are also invited in to talk with the students about their businesses and what is needed to start and maintain a successful business.
Six of the marketing class students have also been chosen to attend a Junior Achiever Innovation Jam in January.
The students were required to write a letter saying why they should attend the conference. Rerie says there were 13 students who wanted to attend the conference and wrote application the letters, but Junior Achievers only pays for six students to attend.
Rerie says she chose four of the students based on their application letters and performance but drew the last two names out of a hat because all of the other applicants were equally deserving of the trip.
The students will fly down to Vancouver for the one-day conference on Jan. 17 and return on Jan. 18.
Order forms for the Talon Bags will be available in the libraries of both Lake City Secondary campuses.