June, 2019
My capstone project is the concession stand for our school’s games and use some of those funds to have an all-state banner hung in the gym. Ever since coming to this school, sports have been a large part of my life. Recently, though, middle school and freshmen sports have been in danger due to budget cuts and a lack of numbers. Playing sports in middle school helped me make friends and develop discipline. With this early start, I was able to be successful in the sports I play today. I am going to be a college athlete, and if I wasn’t introduced to volleyball, then I may not know what I would be doing. At the end of junior year, I saw how much Mrs. Schmidt was struggling with funding for athletics, and I never realized how bad the situation was. So, I asked her how I could help, thus leading to my project today.
July, 2019
I pitched the idea of my capstone to Mrs. Boutilier in the summer of my junior year. She said that I had approval, but I needed to make sure I worked closely with Mrs. Schmidt. I got the okay to do both the all-state banner and concessions. This way, I would be able to tap into the alumni community. I talked to Jake Gallo, who was trying to get a banner last year, and asked if he ever got an estimate. He never got an official quote, but from what he heard from his mentor, a good quality banner would be around $450. My dad has a contact who had done posters for us in the past, so we called him to see if he had an estimate and different options for the banner. He said that they don’t sell banners that are the same material as the ones that we have in our gym and that they are still open to making something for the school. With all of this information, we still didn’t get an exact quote because they don’t do this type of thing very often. It was pretty frustrating because I really didn’t know where to go from there.
August, 2019
The first day of school, I talked to both Mrs. Boutilier and Mrs. Schmidt about my capstone. I spoke in front of my capstone class and told them my idea. I need to figure out who will help sell at games and possibly help me with inventory. My brother said he would want to help and, him being a freshman, he gets volunteer hours. I asked my friend Belmina to paint a donation box that I would have at some of the games for the all-state banner. It will be a shoe box with a hole in the middle like we do with a lot of our Dig Pink games. My goal is to raise $500 for the banner, so any type of donation would be great. I want to create something that would be cool to keep track of the money I’m raising, maybe a big cardboard thermometer that we color in as we get closer to my goal.
September 2, 2019 - September 6, 2019
One morning, I went to Mrs. Schmidt’s room to get a sense as to what we will be doing for the rest of the year. She showed me all of the food that she bought that weekend. She said that we got the O.K. from Mr. Colon to sell from her office. After that, I met with Mrs. Boutilier, and I expressed the idea to potentially sell at the outdoor sports. She said that I should find a member of each team and ask if any parents go to every game. Once I do that, I could ask those parents to watch over the kids who are working the concession stand. In Psychology class, I asked Devin Hill, a captain of the football team, if any parents go to every game. He told me that he would send me the parent email list. At the end of the day, before volleyball practice, I went to Mrs. Schmidt and started to put Gatorades in the fridge. She thinks that we shouldn’t worry about the banner and outdoor sports until we find volunteers. We made a copy of the initial receipt and I created a chart that would keep track of all of the food we have and how much money we make from that. I feel like this project has a lot of moving parts and it’s especially harder for me because I play sports all year round. I need to figure out a group of kids to lead each sport so I know I can trust them to look over the stand. I also don’t know what I will do about the outdoor sports. I think that I’m going to worry about the Fall sports first then play it by year.
September 9, 2019 - September 13, 2019
Our concession stand has been working well. I’m still trying to get a handle on how Mrs. Schmidt wants everything to be done. I found out that Jhymari Rainford wanted to help with the concession stands, more specifically, working the volleyball games. Mrs. Boutelier let me know that he was going to try and come up to me and be professional about it. However, he kind of just walked up and asked, “How can I help?”. I wasn’t upset that he didn’t come up to me in a professional manner because I needed all the help I could get. I find myself in Mrs. Schmidt’s room every morning now, helping her unloading new snacks from her car, taking inventory, and rolling coins. With that though, I feel as though I’m Mrs. Schmidt’s personal assistant. Her life is kind of crazy, and with no real block off, she’s all over the place. She has me do little things like help her print things out for class, staple worksheets for her, and making sure the locker rooms are unlocked when her gym classes come in. It wasn’t a main aspect of my capstone, but I’m actually glad I’m able to help her out because I can see how hectic her life is. Helping her seems to directly correlate to her stress level and how much she is able to do in one day with our athletics. On the 12th, our concession stand was brought outside to the football game at Weaver High School. I went late because I had practice that ended at 5:30. I got a ride from one of my teammates who was already going to the game and saw that two of my classmates, Sherese and Faith, had the concession stand up and running. It was a nice feeling because I’m used to being in control and making sure everything is going the way it should. Relying on people is a hard thing for me, so seeing them working put my mind at ease. We decided on trying to sell hot dogs as well as our normal snacks and let me tell you, those things were hot. At the end of the game, Mrs. Schmidt told us to wrap up all of the hotdogs and leave them for the team. So, my job was to take the dogs out of the crock pot, with the water still blistering hot. Without anything to grab them, my hands were on fire by the time we had gotten through all of the hot dogs. The football team, though, seemed to be appreciative of them, so it was worth it. Working the game for two and a half hours, I was already exhausted, but now we had to pack everything up. The worst part of it all was putting the cooler full with the drinks into the back of Mrs. Schmidt’s car. Faith and I had to carry it up a hill in order to get it to the car, and once we made it, our arms gave out. After the football game and that Friday were over, I already had 8 hours done for field work. This made me feel better about this whole experience because my concern coming into senior year was if I would be able to manage my time and meet all the requirements. Like Mrs. Schmidt has been telling me for the past couple of weeks, I am going to have more than enough hours by the end of this.
September 16, 2019 - October 4, 2019
I feel as though the days are sort of melding together due to the fact that I do the same thing every single school day. So, only a few things have stuck out to me throughout these past couple of weeks. The project so far has allowed me to create relationships that I never expected. Now that I’ve been down in Mrs. Schmidt’s office for the past three weeks or so, some people got approval in the mornings to help me out before and after school. Those kids have helped me out so much and I’m not sure I would have been able to run the concessions as well as it’s going without them. Many athletes have also come into Mrs. Schmidt’s office to lend a hand when I have to change for practice or need to get the gym set up for practice. Keith has been in her office every morning helping set up, take inventory, and roll quarters with Jhymari and I, which is all being done without asking for anything in return. It has really shown me how much the people in our school want for our programs to continue after we’re gone. On one of our first home games, I left Jhymari in charge of finding someone to volunteer while the match was playing out. The day of the game, I find out that Jhymari had no one to work the concession stand. So, I kind of freaked out because I gave him this one job and he didn’t follow through. I did say this was going to be my stretch, and it truly tested me that day. On the bright side, my brother was going to stay after school to watch my game anyway, so he said him and a couple of his friends would do it. After the game, my brother said that he would do all of the remaining home games this season to get his community service hours, which made me a lot more relaxed. Knowing that I always had an option for working made my whole month. I was glad that everything worked out in the end, but I still don’t really know if I could let him make his own decisions without me having any input. Mrs. Schmidt and I have been noticing lately that she’s been having to go to the store a lot more than she did last year with all of our inventory selling like hot cakes. The downside, however, is that we’ve found that we’re coming up short when we actually take inventory. This was pretty disheartening, resulting in Mrs. Schmidt having to keep everything under lock and key. Meaning that she would close the door to her office for a while. I do like the atmosphere when all of the athletes come in and start helping out or hanging out, but I do see where she is coming from. Belmina was finally able to finish the box for the All-State banner, which, by the way, looks amazing, and I placed it out for our home game on the 2nd. I got about $5, and I think that if the flyer that she was also supposed to make was out on the table, I may have gotten more money. Nevertheless, any contribution will benefit my cause.
October 7, 2019 - October 21, 2019
I’m still struggling with the idea of raising money for the banner. My entire focus has been on the concession stand running as smoothly as possible, leaving the banner in the back seat. I’m worried that I won’t raise enough money for it. With that, I still have no idea where I’m getting the banner from, all of the athletes from the school, or an actual design of the banner. Schmidt says she has some ideas, but none of them are super appealing to me. We’ve also been struggling to make a profit on the candy. So, Schmidt and I decided to try and change up what we sold. We got rid of some of the options like airheads xtreme and sour skittles and introduced nature valley granola bars, hershey bars, twizzlers, rolos, and jolly rancher bites. I was a little nervous though, because we hear about one of the kids who goes to SMSA that had an allergic reaction. I never realized that what I was selling could hurt someone. We had to stop selling the peanut produce items, taking away the reeses, snickers, and peanut m&m’s. This was also something that took away from our profits. As the season continues to progress, I’ve gotten into a rhythm: after school, go to the concession stand, work for about 10-15 minutes, get changed for practice, make sure the stand and fridge is restocked, then go to practice. It has gotten a lot easier to handle, especially now that the senior class is running a bake sale every Wednesday after school. The crowds are still pretty big, but the turnout on Wednesdays are significantly less.
October 22, 2019 - November 8, 2019
I finally decided how to raise money for a banner: a GoFundMe page. I came up with a summary of what the all state banner meant to this school and how a lot of these kids go unnoticed by the student body and staff. However, both Mrs. Schmidt and Mr. Colon told me that it made the school sound like they didn’t care about their athletes. I mean, I guess I can see where they are coming from, but that meant I had to start over the 4 paragraph written piece that took me over an hour. Once I got it cleared by administration, I published the link and sent it to some of my family members and coaches. The next day, I woke up to $170 donated to the page. I was in shock. That much money in one day was something I never expected. Over the next couple days, though, I got to $185, which is where I’m stuck at right now. I’ve tried to reach out to the SMSA athletics page to put it out on their instagram story. I also asked Mrs. Boutilier and Mrs. Nguyen to send out the link to the many alumni contacts that they gained over the years. Even after that, still nothing. I’m really worried that I’m not going to raise enough money for the banner. I don’t really know what else to do. Should I go around to the teachers and ask them to donate? Should I keep asking kids? Should I try and find a way to allow for people to pay in cash? Should I ask the school board what they can do? I don’t know where to start and I don’t know if this is actually going to work. A way to help with these stresses was when the senior class went to the military base in Old Lyme. I found myself in a team building environment. The challenges were pretty difficult, and I was so sore after all of the drills. I loved being out of my comfort zone for a little while with people I don’t usually see or talk to everyday. The officers there were very nice, and seemed as though they wanted for us to succeed. My group was pretty successful, having at least one of our members complete the task. After that day, I was really happy with what we were able to accomplish.
November 20, 2019 - December 7, 2019
The day after our loss in the semi finals of the state tournament was a hard day for me. I honestly wanted to skip school, but I felt like I had to go the day after. When I got to school, Mrs. Schmidt had started complaining about my volleyball coach. He apparently bailed on working a state game that was being held at our gym. I did not want to do it, at all. But, I saw that Schmidt was in a tight spot, and I didn’t want to leave her high and dry when I was free that night. So, I stayed after school and set up the concession stand, bleachers, net, and music for the game. Then, Schmidt told me that I had to do the announcements for the players on each team. I’m fine presenting in front of my class or my friends, but not in front of a gym full of over a hundred people. At this point, I was really upset with Goody because he really ditched me and left me and Schmidt to make do with what we had. Once the time came, I started to talk, and the whole gym fell silent. I made a few mistakes with some of the names, but I think I did well overall. Schmidt told me that I did very well, and that she was proud of me. After the whole experience, especially after working for roughly 7 hours in one day, I can say that I was definitely satisfied with what I had just done. I actually had a great time since the game had such high stakes. The best part was the fans for each school. They were so into it and had such awesome cheers, it made me wish our school had something like that. I was pretty upset, though, because we made roughly $2,000 selling tickets at the gate, and we don’t get to keep any of it. We host this game, and all of that money goes straight back to the CIAC. I don’t understand why we can’t keep at least half, even a third, but no, the CIAC just wants our money. Then, the homecoming game came up. I stayed after for about 6 hours again trying to get everything set up for a very, very cold and windy game. We did the hot chocolate for the first time, and I thought it came out pretty well. I had to bring out two coolers of drinks, a table, and two chairs all at once. My arms were dead. The hot chocolate sold really well, and we made about $600 at the stand, and were able to actually keep the money from the gate. The most challenging aspect of November was finding out that all of my money from the GoFundMe page was gone. I apparently didn’t set up the page correctly with a bank account, but I don’t get how I was still able to receive money in the first place. I lost $185, and I felt even more stuck than ever. This was the main source of my income that went towards the banner. I felt a lot better after I received an email from a parent of a student from 2015 asking how they could help. That was when I figured out that my project does matter to a lot of these athletes. Mrs. Schmidt came up with a new way to possibly get money for it. The Magnet Fair was being at our school on the 7th, where hundreds of families will be looking for different magnet schools for their children. So, after practice from 8-9:30 in the morning, I set up the stand with Keith, his sister Kia Kia, and Jhymari. We had the coffee ready for the first time, all of the snacks were laid out, and the drinks were set up in the fridge. The amount of money made from the entire event, which was 3 hours: $12. I was incredibly frustrated. Turns out, they had free pizza and popcorn in the field house, where anyone could take from. That would’ve been nice to know before hand, because why would people want to buy something when they have the opportunity to get free food?
December 15, 2019 - December 20, 2019
Mrs. Schmidt was in Baltimore for a conference for athletic directors. At this conference, there were stands created by some companies, one of them being School Spirit, where they had different types of recognition posters. They had slots where they could put the names of athletes, their year, and their sport. I liked it, but my heart is really set on a banner. The banner in my opinion would look so much better. It would match the gym a lot better, and it would definitely be a lot more inexpensive upfront compared to the slot poster. It will cost around $1,000 for the slot, but at this point, I’ll be surprised if it ever works out. I know I need to have hope, but it just keeps getting pushed to the back burner compared to everything needed to do for the benefit of the athletic department. One major thing we had to worry about as break was about to start was making sure all of our products were stored away. Mrs. Schmidt grabbed a big cabinet from the back and we started filling it. I had the help of some of the kids on the track team and Jhymari to get everything into that cabinet. We didn’t have many chips left, so we started filling all of the snacks into the empty chip boxes to save as much room as possible. The most difficult part was getting all of the drinks to fit. There were several cases of water and soda that had to go into the cabinet, so all of us were able to make sure everything got put away.
January 2, 2020 - January 12, 2020
I’ve been struggling a lot recently. My mental health hasn’t been great due to so many things happening at once. First, it’s finals and essays due for classes. I feel like I don’t have enough time to finish everything. I feel so behind on all of my work. I went through a pretty rough winter break, so I went through a spell of not wanting to do anything. I’ve been trying my best to work on that, but it’s the little things that are getting me through. Every time I complete an assignment, a little weight comes off of my shoulders. So, even though my heart wasn’t in it for the past week, I am getting back into my routine. The concession stand was the constant I needed. I know it sounds kind of weird, but knowing that there was something I could fix and help other than myself helped me a lot.
January 21, 2020 - February 7, 2020
With Basketball season underway, things have been really busy. Basketball is a popular sport at the school, and both the middle school and high school are in the middle of their seasons. I feel like I’ve been working non-stop all year, but now, it feels like I have way more on my plate. I play basketball as well, so I find myself working the stand after school before practice, similar to what I did for volleyball. This time, though, it seems like there are 20 people moving in and out of Mrs. Schmidt’s room while we’re trying to sell. It gets really overwhelming at times because all of these kids are coming to get snacks, then when I sell, people are constantly in the way. I try to be polite and say excuse me, but it’s pretty frustrating. On the plus side, because there are so many people in the back, some people help me out. For example, if I am doing the snacks, another person will come help out on splitting the crowd with the snacks, and then another person would be by the fridge if anyone wants a drink. That definitely helps when there is a really big crowd and we’re trying to move fast. I am beginning to learn a lot about myself throughout this project. I now realize for a fact that I want nothing to do with working with children in the future. I have been working before and after school for 6 months now, and these kids are crazy and impatient. I’ll have a group of twenty middle schoolers outside of Mrs. Schmidt’s office yelling at each other trying to figure out what they want to buy, then yell their order at me all at once. I don’t say much about their attitudes and how they handle the situations because we need the customers, but some of the seniors waiting in the back can see this behavior. They start saying things like “These kids are so rude. Don’t sell to them until they say please and thank you,”. I completely agree with everything that they are saying, but if I went by that rule, we wouldn’t make any profits. The high school kids are fine, I think that once these kids get into high school and mature, they’ll act better, but who knows.
March 2, 2020 - March 30, 2020
I presented in Mrs. Boutilier’s second semester capstone class, which was the first time I had done so since I finished the class in the first semester. I wasn’t too nervous, and I honestly didn’t prepare a lot, but it actually went smoothly. The kids in the class seemed to be interested in what I had to say while also asking questions about the research that I found. I actually enjoyed presenting because I could see how all of my work has been paying off. It felt really good to know that I was also helping my fellow classmates in the process. I have been talking with Mrs. Schmidt about actually placing the order for the banner. We did a lot of research to find as many names as possible from past years because each name that we have comes with the price of the banner. I had to go through the All-State archives and looked through every sport that our school offers. Once I did that, we reached 25 athletes, but several of those students received the award more than once. We decided that it would be better for us to go by year, and those athletes will have their names up for whenever they achieved All-State status. We called the graphics team and they said they would be able to start inputting the names after we edited the small details. One of our track athletes won at state opens this year, which means that he will get a banner with his name on it in the gym. Along with that, the boys basketball team won the conference during the regular season, meaning another banner for them. So, with that said, I was thinking of having a ceremony for all of the banners to be revealed at once. We would do the boy’s basketball team first, then the track athlete, and lastly my banner. I would say a few words about the banner and describe why I chose this as my capstone. Well, that plan has been put on hold for now due to this quarantine situation. We put all of the food and drinks in storage knowing that we wouldn’t be able to go back to school in a while. This closure is obviously affecting the profits that we were getting from the stand, which is affecting what we can afford for banners. I still got in contact with the graphics team and the official banner has been ordered, I’m just not sure when it’s supposed to come in, or if it does. It really isn’t fun just sitting at home all day. I’d much rather deal with those crazy middle schoolers than be in quarantine, and that’s saying something. I just pray that this will all be over soon and everyone will come back to school with some hope to enjoy the last few months at SMSA.
My capstone project is the concession stand for our school’s games and use some of those funds to have an all-state banner hung in the gym. Ever since coming to this school, sports have been a large part of my life. Recently, though, middle school and freshmen sports have been in danger due to budget cuts and a lack of numbers. Playing sports in middle school helped me make friends and develop discipline. With this early start, I was able to be successful in the sports I play today. I am going to be a college athlete, and if I wasn’t introduced to volleyball, then I may not know what I would be doing. At the end of junior year, I saw how much Mrs. Schmidt was struggling with funding for athletics, and I never realized how bad the situation was. So, I asked her how I could help, thus leading to my project today.
July, 2019
I pitched the idea of my capstone to Mrs. Boutilier in the summer of my junior year. She said that I had approval, but I needed to make sure I worked closely with Mrs. Schmidt. I got the okay to do both the all-state banner and concessions. This way, I would be able to tap into the alumni community. I talked to Jake Gallo, who was trying to get a banner last year, and asked if he ever got an estimate. He never got an official quote, but from what he heard from his mentor, a good quality banner would be around $450. My dad has a contact who had done posters for us in the past, so we called him to see if he had an estimate and different options for the banner. He said that they don’t sell banners that are the same material as the ones that we have in our gym and that they are still open to making something for the school. With all of this information, we still didn’t get an exact quote because they don’t do this type of thing very often. It was pretty frustrating because I really didn’t know where to go from there.
August, 2019
The first day of school, I talked to both Mrs. Boutilier and Mrs. Schmidt about my capstone. I spoke in front of my capstone class and told them my idea. I need to figure out who will help sell at games and possibly help me with inventory. My brother said he would want to help and, him being a freshman, he gets volunteer hours. I asked my friend Belmina to paint a donation box that I would have at some of the games for the all-state banner. It will be a shoe box with a hole in the middle like we do with a lot of our Dig Pink games. My goal is to raise $500 for the banner, so any type of donation would be great. I want to create something that would be cool to keep track of the money I’m raising, maybe a big cardboard thermometer that we color in as we get closer to my goal.
September 2, 2019 - September 6, 2019
One morning, I went to Mrs. Schmidt’s room to get a sense as to what we will be doing for the rest of the year. She showed me all of the food that she bought that weekend. She said that we got the O.K. from Mr. Colon to sell from her office. After that, I met with Mrs. Boutilier, and I expressed the idea to potentially sell at the outdoor sports. She said that I should find a member of each team and ask if any parents go to every game. Once I do that, I could ask those parents to watch over the kids who are working the concession stand. In Psychology class, I asked Devin Hill, a captain of the football team, if any parents go to every game. He told me that he would send me the parent email list. At the end of the day, before volleyball practice, I went to Mrs. Schmidt and started to put Gatorades in the fridge. She thinks that we shouldn’t worry about the banner and outdoor sports until we find volunteers. We made a copy of the initial receipt and I created a chart that would keep track of all of the food we have and how much money we make from that. I feel like this project has a lot of moving parts and it’s especially harder for me because I play sports all year round. I need to figure out a group of kids to lead each sport so I know I can trust them to look over the stand. I also don’t know what I will do about the outdoor sports. I think that I’m going to worry about the Fall sports first then play it by year.
September 9, 2019 - September 13, 2019
Our concession stand has been working well. I’m still trying to get a handle on how Mrs. Schmidt wants everything to be done. I found out that Jhymari Rainford wanted to help with the concession stands, more specifically, working the volleyball games. Mrs. Boutelier let me know that he was going to try and come up to me and be professional about it. However, he kind of just walked up and asked, “How can I help?”. I wasn’t upset that he didn’t come up to me in a professional manner because I needed all the help I could get. I find myself in Mrs. Schmidt’s room every morning now, helping her unloading new snacks from her car, taking inventory, and rolling coins. With that though, I feel as though I’m Mrs. Schmidt’s personal assistant. Her life is kind of crazy, and with no real block off, she’s all over the place. She has me do little things like help her print things out for class, staple worksheets for her, and making sure the locker rooms are unlocked when her gym classes come in. It wasn’t a main aspect of my capstone, but I’m actually glad I’m able to help her out because I can see how hectic her life is. Helping her seems to directly correlate to her stress level and how much she is able to do in one day with our athletics. On the 12th, our concession stand was brought outside to the football game at Weaver High School. I went late because I had practice that ended at 5:30. I got a ride from one of my teammates who was already going to the game and saw that two of my classmates, Sherese and Faith, had the concession stand up and running. It was a nice feeling because I’m used to being in control and making sure everything is going the way it should. Relying on people is a hard thing for me, so seeing them working put my mind at ease. We decided on trying to sell hot dogs as well as our normal snacks and let me tell you, those things were hot. At the end of the game, Mrs. Schmidt told us to wrap up all of the hotdogs and leave them for the team. So, my job was to take the dogs out of the crock pot, with the water still blistering hot. Without anything to grab them, my hands were on fire by the time we had gotten through all of the hot dogs. The football team, though, seemed to be appreciative of them, so it was worth it. Working the game for two and a half hours, I was already exhausted, but now we had to pack everything up. The worst part of it all was putting the cooler full with the drinks into the back of Mrs. Schmidt’s car. Faith and I had to carry it up a hill in order to get it to the car, and once we made it, our arms gave out. After the football game and that Friday were over, I already had 8 hours done for field work. This made me feel better about this whole experience because my concern coming into senior year was if I would be able to manage my time and meet all the requirements. Like Mrs. Schmidt has been telling me for the past couple of weeks, I am going to have more than enough hours by the end of this.
September 16, 2019 - October 4, 2019
I feel as though the days are sort of melding together due to the fact that I do the same thing every single school day. So, only a few things have stuck out to me throughout these past couple of weeks. The project so far has allowed me to create relationships that I never expected. Now that I’ve been down in Mrs. Schmidt’s office for the past three weeks or so, some people got approval in the mornings to help me out before and after school. Those kids have helped me out so much and I’m not sure I would have been able to run the concessions as well as it’s going without them. Many athletes have also come into Mrs. Schmidt’s office to lend a hand when I have to change for practice or need to get the gym set up for practice. Keith has been in her office every morning helping set up, take inventory, and roll quarters with Jhymari and I, which is all being done without asking for anything in return. It has really shown me how much the people in our school want for our programs to continue after we’re gone. On one of our first home games, I left Jhymari in charge of finding someone to volunteer while the match was playing out. The day of the game, I find out that Jhymari had no one to work the concession stand. So, I kind of freaked out because I gave him this one job and he didn’t follow through. I did say this was going to be my stretch, and it truly tested me that day. On the bright side, my brother was going to stay after school to watch my game anyway, so he said him and a couple of his friends would do it. After the game, my brother said that he would do all of the remaining home games this season to get his community service hours, which made me a lot more relaxed. Knowing that I always had an option for working made my whole month. I was glad that everything worked out in the end, but I still don’t really know if I could let him make his own decisions without me having any input. Mrs. Schmidt and I have been noticing lately that she’s been having to go to the store a lot more than she did last year with all of our inventory selling like hot cakes. The downside, however, is that we’ve found that we’re coming up short when we actually take inventory. This was pretty disheartening, resulting in Mrs. Schmidt having to keep everything under lock and key. Meaning that she would close the door to her office for a while. I do like the atmosphere when all of the athletes come in and start helping out or hanging out, but I do see where she is coming from. Belmina was finally able to finish the box for the All-State banner, which, by the way, looks amazing, and I placed it out for our home game on the 2nd. I got about $5, and I think that if the flyer that she was also supposed to make was out on the table, I may have gotten more money. Nevertheless, any contribution will benefit my cause.
October 7, 2019 - October 21, 2019
I’m still struggling with the idea of raising money for the banner. My entire focus has been on the concession stand running as smoothly as possible, leaving the banner in the back seat. I’m worried that I won’t raise enough money for it. With that, I still have no idea where I’m getting the banner from, all of the athletes from the school, or an actual design of the banner. Schmidt says she has some ideas, but none of them are super appealing to me. We’ve also been struggling to make a profit on the candy. So, Schmidt and I decided to try and change up what we sold. We got rid of some of the options like airheads xtreme and sour skittles and introduced nature valley granola bars, hershey bars, twizzlers, rolos, and jolly rancher bites. I was a little nervous though, because we hear about one of the kids who goes to SMSA that had an allergic reaction. I never realized that what I was selling could hurt someone. We had to stop selling the peanut produce items, taking away the reeses, snickers, and peanut m&m’s. This was also something that took away from our profits. As the season continues to progress, I’ve gotten into a rhythm: after school, go to the concession stand, work for about 10-15 minutes, get changed for practice, make sure the stand and fridge is restocked, then go to practice. It has gotten a lot easier to handle, especially now that the senior class is running a bake sale every Wednesday after school. The crowds are still pretty big, but the turnout on Wednesdays are significantly less.
October 22, 2019 - November 8, 2019
I finally decided how to raise money for a banner: a GoFundMe page. I came up with a summary of what the all state banner meant to this school and how a lot of these kids go unnoticed by the student body and staff. However, both Mrs. Schmidt and Mr. Colon told me that it made the school sound like they didn’t care about their athletes. I mean, I guess I can see where they are coming from, but that meant I had to start over the 4 paragraph written piece that took me over an hour. Once I got it cleared by administration, I published the link and sent it to some of my family members and coaches. The next day, I woke up to $170 donated to the page. I was in shock. That much money in one day was something I never expected. Over the next couple days, though, I got to $185, which is where I’m stuck at right now. I’ve tried to reach out to the SMSA athletics page to put it out on their instagram story. I also asked Mrs. Boutilier and Mrs. Nguyen to send out the link to the many alumni contacts that they gained over the years. Even after that, still nothing. I’m really worried that I’m not going to raise enough money for the banner. I don’t really know what else to do. Should I go around to the teachers and ask them to donate? Should I keep asking kids? Should I try and find a way to allow for people to pay in cash? Should I ask the school board what they can do? I don’t know where to start and I don’t know if this is actually going to work. A way to help with these stresses was when the senior class went to the military base in Old Lyme. I found myself in a team building environment. The challenges were pretty difficult, and I was so sore after all of the drills. I loved being out of my comfort zone for a little while with people I don’t usually see or talk to everyday. The officers there were very nice, and seemed as though they wanted for us to succeed. My group was pretty successful, having at least one of our members complete the task. After that day, I was really happy with what we were able to accomplish.
November 20, 2019 - December 7, 2019
The day after our loss in the semi finals of the state tournament was a hard day for me. I honestly wanted to skip school, but I felt like I had to go the day after. When I got to school, Mrs. Schmidt had started complaining about my volleyball coach. He apparently bailed on working a state game that was being held at our gym. I did not want to do it, at all. But, I saw that Schmidt was in a tight spot, and I didn’t want to leave her high and dry when I was free that night. So, I stayed after school and set up the concession stand, bleachers, net, and music for the game. Then, Schmidt told me that I had to do the announcements for the players on each team. I’m fine presenting in front of my class or my friends, but not in front of a gym full of over a hundred people. At this point, I was really upset with Goody because he really ditched me and left me and Schmidt to make do with what we had. Once the time came, I started to talk, and the whole gym fell silent. I made a few mistakes with some of the names, but I think I did well overall. Schmidt told me that I did very well, and that she was proud of me. After the whole experience, especially after working for roughly 7 hours in one day, I can say that I was definitely satisfied with what I had just done. I actually had a great time since the game had such high stakes. The best part was the fans for each school. They were so into it and had such awesome cheers, it made me wish our school had something like that. I was pretty upset, though, because we made roughly $2,000 selling tickets at the gate, and we don’t get to keep any of it. We host this game, and all of that money goes straight back to the CIAC. I don’t understand why we can’t keep at least half, even a third, but no, the CIAC just wants our money. Then, the homecoming game came up. I stayed after for about 6 hours again trying to get everything set up for a very, very cold and windy game. We did the hot chocolate for the first time, and I thought it came out pretty well. I had to bring out two coolers of drinks, a table, and two chairs all at once. My arms were dead. The hot chocolate sold really well, and we made about $600 at the stand, and were able to actually keep the money from the gate. The most challenging aspect of November was finding out that all of my money from the GoFundMe page was gone. I apparently didn’t set up the page correctly with a bank account, but I don’t get how I was still able to receive money in the first place. I lost $185, and I felt even more stuck than ever. This was the main source of my income that went towards the banner. I felt a lot better after I received an email from a parent of a student from 2015 asking how they could help. That was when I figured out that my project does matter to a lot of these athletes. Mrs. Schmidt came up with a new way to possibly get money for it. The Magnet Fair was being at our school on the 7th, where hundreds of families will be looking for different magnet schools for their children. So, after practice from 8-9:30 in the morning, I set up the stand with Keith, his sister Kia Kia, and Jhymari. We had the coffee ready for the first time, all of the snacks were laid out, and the drinks were set up in the fridge. The amount of money made from the entire event, which was 3 hours: $12. I was incredibly frustrated. Turns out, they had free pizza and popcorn in the field house, where anyone could take from. That would’ve been nice to know before hand, because why would people want to buy something when they have the opportunity to get free food?
December 15, 2019 - December 20, 2019
Mrs. Schmidt was in Baltimore for a conference for athletic directors. At this conference, there were stands created by some companies, one of them being School Spirit, where they had different types of recognition posters. They had slots where they could put the names of athletes, their year, and their sport. I liked it, but my heart is really set on a banner. The banner in my opinion would look so much better. It would match the gym a lot better, and it would definitely be a lot more inexpensive upfront compared to the slot poster. It will cost around $1,000 for the slot, but at this point, I’ll be surprised if it ever works out. I know I need to have hope, but it just keeps getting pushed to the back burner compared to everything needed to do for the benefit of the athletic department. One major thing we had to worry about as break was about to start was making sure all of our products were stored away. Mrs. Schmidt grabbed a big cabinet from the back and we started filling it. I had the help of some of the kids on the track team and Jhymari to get everything into that cabinet. We didn’t have many chips left, so we started filling all of the snacks into the empty chip boxes to save as much room as possible. The most difficult part was getting all of the drinks to fit. There were several cases of water and soda that had to go into the cabinet, so all of us were able to make sure everything got put away.
January 2, 2020 - January 12, 2020
I’ve been struggling a lot recently. My mental health hasn’t been great due to so many things happening at once. First, it’s finals and essays due for classes. I feel like I don’t have enough time to finish everything. I feel so behind on all of my work. I went through a pretty rough winter break, so I went through a spell of not wanting to do anything. I’ve been trying my best to work on that, but it’s the little things that are getting me through. Every time I complete an assignment, a little weight comes off of my shoulders. So, even though my heart wasn’t in it for the past week, I am getting back into my routine. The concession stand was the constant I needed. I know it sounds kind of weird, but knowing that there was something I could fix and help other than myself helped me a lot.
January 21, 2020 - February 7, 2020
With Basketball season underway, things have been really busy. Basketball is a popular sport at the school, and both the middle school and high school are in the middle of their seasons. I feel like I’ve been working non-stop all year, but now, it feels like I have way more on my plate. I play basketball as well, so I find myself working the stand after school before practice, similar to what I did for volleyball. This time, though, it seems like there are 20 people moving in and out of Mrs. Schmidt’s room while we’re trying to sell. It gets really overwhelming at times because all of these kids are coming to get snacks, then when I sell, people are constantly in the way. I try to be polite and say excuse me, but it’s pretty frustrating. On the plus side, because there are so many people in the back, some people help me out. For example, if I am doing the snacks, another person will come help out on splitting the crowd with the snacks, and then another person would be by the fridge if anyone wants a drink. That definitely helps when there is a really big crowd and we’re trying to move fast. I am beginning to learn a lot about myself throughout this project. I now realize for a fact that I want nothing to do with working with children in the future. I have been working before and after school for 6 months now, and these kids are crazy and impatient. I’ll have a group of twenty middle schoolers outside of Mrs. Schmidt’s office yelling at each other trying to figure out what they want to buy, then yell their order at me all at once. I don’t say much about their attitudes and how they handle the situations because we need the customers, but some of the seniors waiting in the back can see this behavior. They start saying things like “These kids are so rude. Don’t sell to them until they say please and thank you,”. I completely agree with everything that they are saying, but if I went by that rule, we wouldn’t make any profits. The high school kids are fine, I think that once these kids get into high school and mature, they’ll act better, but who knows.
March 2, 2020 - March 30, 2020
I presented in Mrs. Boutilier’s second semester capstone class, which was the first time I had done so since I finished the class in the first semester. I wasn’t too nervous, and I honestly didn’t prepare a lot, but it actually went smoothly. The kids in the class seemed to be interested in what I had to say while also asking questions about the research that I found. I actually enjoyed presenting because I could see how all of my work has been paying off. It felt really good to know that I was also helping my fellow classmates in the process. I have been talking with Mrs. Schmidt about actually placing the order for the banner. We did a lot of research to find as many names as possible from past years because each name that we have comes with the price of the banner. I had to go through the All-State archives and looked through every sport that our school offers. Once I did that, we reached 25 athletes, but several of those students received the award more than once. We decided that it would be better for us to go by year, and those athletes will have their names up for whenever they achieved All-State status. We called the graphics team and they said they would be able to start inputting the names after we edited the small details. One of our track athletes won at state opens this year, which means that he will get a banner with his name on it in the gym. Along with that, the boys basketball team won the conference during the regular season, meaning another banner for them. So, with that said, I was thinking of having a ceremony for all of the banners to be revealed at once. We would do the boy’s basketball team first, then the track athlete, and lastly my banner. I would say a few words about the banner and describe why I chose this as my capstone. Well, that plan has been put on hold for now due to this quarantine situation. We put all of the food and drinks in storage knowing that we wouldn’t be able to go back to school in a while. This closure is obviously affecting the profits that we were getting from the stand, which is affecting what we can afford for banners. I still got in contact with the graphics team and the official banner has been ordered, I’m just not sure when it’s supposed to come in, or if it does. It really isn’t fun just sitting at home all day. I’d much rather deal with those crazy middle schoolers than be in quarantine, and that’s saying something. I just pray that this will all be over soon and everyone will come back to school with some hope to enjoy the last few months at SMSA.