Culler students start t-shirt business, donate profits

A group of students at Culler Middle School has raised more than $400 for a local non-profit organization by selling t-shirts they designed.

Students in Josh Scheffert’s and Tamra Westmoreland’s sixth-grade Humanities classes presented the money to representatives from the Center for People in Need on Oct. 19 at Culler. As of this week, they had sold 90 t-shirts.

Last year students designed t-shirts and “competed” for Scheffert’s business as a potential consumer, similar to the popular TV show “Shark Tank.” They didn’t actually produce and sell the t-shirts, though.

“This year we decided to actually execute the business plan,” Scheffert said.

Every student designed a t-shirt, then they voted on their three favorites. They used a website titled “Kidz of Culler: A store with purpose” to sell the shirts. They sold them to family, friends and Culler staff. They also researched local non-profit groups they could donate their profits to and ultimately chose the Center for People in Need.

“I hope the students learned the process of starting a business from scratch,” Scheffert said. “I also hope they learned economic principles such as supply and demand, as well as cost and how to price items based on starting cost and how to generate revenue.”

Students said they learned a lot from the experience. Here are some of their responses: 

• We learned that starting and running a business is difficult and is a process.
• We learned that we were helping people in need.
• We learned how to design products.
• We learned how to use google forms to vote on shirt designs.
• We learned how to research different charities in the community.
• We learned how to market and advertise to different people.
• We learned how to make a logo.

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