The School Store
By: Heera Dalal
Embedded Files
About Me
About Me
Welcome to my Capstone page! My name is Heera Dalal and I'm currently a Senior attending Moorestown Friends School. I've always been interested in learning the ins and outs of starting and operating a business. In fact, I plan to pursue business as a college major and a future career. I'm passionate about using business to create positive societal change. Leadership, organization, and delegation are skills I've been able to develop through high school and I wanted to create a model to help other students do the same through experience. I hope you enjoy reading about my project and that it serves as valuable inspiration.
The Project
The School Store is a complete guide for students to start their very own store at their school. It is set up in a template format and has a detailed strategic plan, marketing materials, surveys, product lists, location guidelines, personnel guidelines, and more. Through hours of research, writing, and compiling, I've created a comprehensive guide for any student to start their own student-run business at their high school. The template outlines an important distinction for The School Store: it is a nonprofit entity and the business must contribute funds to charity. This is to ensure the idea of creating positive societal change resonates with the participating students. My Capstone aims to give students with a knack for business and entrepreneurship the opportunity to explore their passions while positively contributing to society.
Goals
Goals
Originally, I sought to create a school store at Moorestown Friends School. The store was to follow the same values, goals, and structure that ended up being my final product. The main goal of the project was to create a model that gives students with a passion for entrepreneurship and business the opportunity to explore that passion in a hands-on environment. I, however, decided to expand the scope of my project beyond my high school to be a general template for any student with an educational focus.
Process
Process
After starting my research process, I immediately dug into the differences between for-profit, not-for-profit, and non-profit businesses. This additionally prompted a research process into Moorestown Friends School and its structure as a non-profit organization. I decided to go with a non-profit form for my final product because it encapsulated the values of the school store the best. In my research process into Moorestown Friends School, I learned about conflicting parties and the possible issues with having a school store on campus. Some included the already existing dining service, apparel services, and space constraints. Discovering these problems with my specific situation prompted me to generalize the project into my final result.
Results
Results
Finally, I developed the School Store template. My revisions and process all led me to create the general template as my final product. I still was able to fulfill my original goal of creating a hands-on learning experience for students interested in entrepreneurship and business. Since it's a general template, the final product has the ability to make a large impact on many students' lives.
Elements
Below is a list of the various sections of my Capstone.
The Strategic Plan
Step-by-step guide to starting The School Store
Materials
Location Guidelines
Surveys
Potential Product List
Personnel Structure
Heera Capstone Final.pdf
Inspiration
One of my biggest inspirations for this project comes from Georgetown University's student run business: The Corp. The Corp is a large scale "public, non-profit, and charitable organization at Georgetown University" (The Corp Mission Page). This is a great example of students learning about business and entrepreneurship through experience (on a much larger scale). To learn more about The Corp see their site to the right or click the button.
Reflection
Reflection
Overall, I'm happy with and proud of my final product. I'm glad I was able to create something that has a high potential of impacting many students. It's important to me to create space in the high school setting for students to learn about business through experience. I am a strong believer that experience is the best teacher and I'm happy to have created something that honors that principle. Looking back, I could have improved upon some aspects of my project execution. My number one piece of advice to any student that is considering doing a Capstone project is to focus on time management. I learned some valuable lessons while completing my Capstone that I will use later in life; one of those being the value of change. My Capstone went through many changes from beginning to end and the project was better for it. I'm glad I got to complete this project and hope it impacts many students.
The Future
The Future
Taking this to the next step is something I'm very interested in. Despite the discovered difficulties with having a school store at my high school, I would attempt to implement the store at Moorestown Friends School. This would require writing a formal proposal to the school in a very similar format to the general template I've already created. I would then run the store with the help of other students and create a club to carry it on. It would definitely be a difficult process given all the conflicts I discovered but it would be interesting to try actually running it. Additionally, I would love to introduce the template I've created to other students at different high schools and hear their feedback and how they would go about implementing it at their school.
Final Message
Thank you for viewing my Capstone! To view my sources please follow the button to the right or this link. To reach out for any questions or comments reach me at heeradalal612@gmail.com or follow the button to the right. A special thank you to Mr. Thomson for advising my project.
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