The following blog post is written by a guest blogger describing how they utilize resources from within their community to create a functional student business for their life skills classroom.
We began our flower business during COVID, because I couldn't take my students off campus to their job sites. I met with managers of various stores, and one of the local stores (Fresh Market) was all in. In the beginning, we picked up flowers weekly. Now we do it every other week. I sent out emails to staff and members of my community to see if anyone had any vases to donate to the classroom. Many staff brought them in and many Facebook groups shared the post and I've had hundreds of vases donated to my classroom.
I drive the students to Fresh Market, and the staff there have flowers ready for us in buckets. There are flowers that may have some mold or flowers that are dying. It's up to my students to go through the flowers to see what we can sell and what we can't.
We bring the flowers back to school. The students go through the flowers and throw away the ones that we can't sell and they take off most of the leaves. Then the students separate the flowers by color. They put them in large vases in the classroom. I take photos of the flowers and send them out to staff. The students make both $5.00 bouquets (7 flowers) and $10 bouquets (14 flowers).
I have some staff that have standing orders, and others that buy flowers for other staff members. My students write notes to attach to the bouquets when needed. We pick up the flowers on Tuesdays and begin prepping them when we get back to class. Bouquets are usually made and delivered on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Students collect the money when the flowers are delivered. Staff usually return the vases so we can reuse them, but if they are buying for people outside of school, we usually don't get the vases back. We send flowers to bus drivers for bus driver appreciation week, cafeteria staff, custodians etc.
Another fun idea to change up the vase arrangements is using these bags. Look how adorable they turned out! You can order them by CLICKING HERE.
This has been a WIN/WIN for my students. It's 100% profit, and it allows me to bring the students into the community for CBI without asking parents for any money.