This past school year, Upper Elementary students created UE Pizzeria. A pizza delivery/lunch experience business to raise monies for the annual school trip and non-profit organizations. The students learned the different aspects of running a business including advertising, marketing and accounting. Read more about their experience from the students themselves:
Advertising and Marketing—by Maggie and Aidan
Making posters to advertise our business was really important. We included pictures and information about the fundraiser– what the money was being used for, when the money was due, where the pizza was from and when it would be delivered. We used drawings that would “catch our customers’ eye.” We think the posters helped in our success!
We spent a lot of time on customer satisfaction and appreciation. This was very important to us this year. We had weekly raffle drawings for employees as well as customers. We did a customer survey and looked at the results and made improvements. We showed Lower Elementary how much we appreciated their business by purchasing classroom gifts for each room. We bought a microscope for Room 7 and a Globe for Room 8. Both rooms got a Galileo Thermometer each. On the last day of our pizza lunch, all customers received a “Customer Appreciation Bag”.
The Accounting Team—by Dylan, Aneesh and Ved
This year, we utilized more computer technology. With the help of parent volunteers, we created a spread sheet to keep detailed record of the orders, payments made and expenses spent. We put in customer names and orders and all who had pre-paid with dates. It was easier to use the computer to project our revenue each week, add numbers and double check orders. We added our receipts (receipts were written by Ms. Alana and Ms. Suneeta at the front office) each week to make sure the numbers from the computer were the same. In the past, we had to go through “tons of paper” to double check our orders and receipts.
Filing order forms and delivering the receipts to our customers was very time consuming. We wanted to make sure each customer got a receipt because it was a responsibility of the accounting team.
We enjoyed working on Ms. Suneeta’s laptop, using technology and some “old-fashioned” ways of filing and delivering information.
The Delivery Team—by Alex and Nikhil
The whole class helped deliver pizza lunches. We think we provided a personal touch by putting names and their order on the plates and by walking each lunch down to each customer.
We liked the system we used! Food items and paper products were set up in different stations. We would pick up a plate and drink, stop by Mrs. Patrice to tell her the name stapled on the plate and then go to Ms. Rekha, Ms. Suneeta or Ms. Adrianna to pick up the pizza, veggies and fruit. All juice, veggies and fruit were donated by UE parents. Our average time for delivery was eight minutes!
We were unable to deliver pizza one week due to bad weather (the school was closed). We sent out a letter asking the customer whether they could like to donate the money or use it for next pizza lunch.
Keep Our Community Clean (KCC) Team —by Isabella
Keeping our community clean was very important for our business, especially since we were working with food. We were responsible for helping keep the kitchen and dining area clean. We would clean out different station before we started the business. Juice was set up ahead of time on a clean table. Vegetables and fruit was washed and cut and set up on a clean table, so was the piazza. We washed our hands and wore gloves before handling food. After all deliveries were made, we took all recyclables materials, like the pizza boxes and plastic juice bottles, to the recycling dumpsters outside the school.
