Northfield Juniors Take Business Skills to DECA Nationals

Two Northfield High School juniors are headed to the national DECA competition in Atlanta at the end of April. DECA is a program that prepares students for careers in business and finance. Tony Drinkwine and Cohen Troge advanced from the state competition by thinking quickly on their feet as they role played how to increase business for a hypothetical hotel that catered to golfers.

Another portion of the competition focused on a real small business in their own neighborhood. Drinkwine has been going to Mici Italian in Central Park with his family since he was four years old, and last fall he began working there. He and Troge chose the restaurant for a case study, developing a plan to strengthen its corporate social responsibility efforts.

After conducting a customer survey, the duo discovered that patrons valued the restaurant’s commitment to the neighborhood. “We found that the community has a strong connection with Mici’s goals of helping schools and school programs,” Troge said.

The two students created a plan to encourage more engagement by allowing customers to vote online for other organizations that could receive donations from Mici’s. The plan hasn’t been adopted by the restaurant yet, but co-owner Marissa Miceli said she was proud of the work the students did. “Giving back to the community is what guides us strategically. So, it was reassuring to learn that it’s what our customers want us to continue to do,” she said.

Drinkwine said the project showed him how important corporate social responsibility can be, noting, “Businesses that are involved in the community and giving back usually do better because the community appreciates and respects what they’re doing.” He said it’s a lesson he plans to carry with him as he continues exploring a career in business.

Second Graders Turn Bluff Lake Trash into Art

An enormous piece of art made from trash now proudly hangs inside the newly opened administrative building at Bluff Lake Nature Center. The six-by-ten-foot mosaic depicts the Colorado flag and was created by second graders at Isabella Bird Community School.

Second-grade teacher Tiff Vandre-Lothe said her classes visited the nearby nature center three times last year as part of a unit on the environment. “We wanted to learn about human impacts on the environment and what measures are being taken at Bluff Lake to keep the area thriving,” she said. During one of their visits, students collected trash they found on the property and brought it back to school.

That’s when the idea for an art project took shape.

“Tiff came by and said they had picked up all of this trash and wondered if we could do something creative with it, and I immediately said, ‘Don’t bring that dirty trash into my classroom,’” said art instructor Erin Mindigo with a laugh.

Parents soon stepped in to help, organizing a “trash-washing party” to rinse out chip bags, candy wrappers, and other items the students had collected. Once clean, the children sorted the materials by color.

“I talked with the students about what we should create,” Mindigo said. “We saw lots of primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—and that’s when we hit on the idea of designing the Colorado flag.”

A few fifth-grade students helped sketch the flag design onto a large, donated paper backdrop that had once been used in a photography studio. Then the second graders got to work carefully gluing the colorful bits of trash into place.

“They were very excited,” Mindigo said. “Some of them remembered specific pieces of trash that they picked up. And we got really lucky—someone found a broken yellow Frisbee that we used for the center of the flag.”

Both teachers said the students were very proud of the finished piece.

“In our science and social studies classes, we talked a lot about how we can make the world a better place,” Vandre-Lothe said. “This was a tangible way for them to see that you can take something like trash and recycle it into something beautiful.”

Mindigo said the project also brought the class together. “It really united the students, working on one big piece like this,” she said. “I’d love to find a way to do something similar with other classes sometime.”