FREMONT, Neb. (AP) — An eastern Nebraska high school will soon welcome a new coffee shop on campus, created and run by students.
An entrepreneurship class will be bringing Deja Brew to Fremont High School this fall, the Fremont Tribune reported. The class is offered by the high school and Metropolitan Community College, but it’s the first time the business incubator has created a student-run and student-managed business.
“We came to these students with the idea, or the premise, and we let them take it and run with it,” said Matt Burg, a business teacher at Fremont High School. “They’ve done a great job with coming up with all of the ideas. They named it, created the logo, marketing concept, business prospectus; every element has been done by the students.”
The class conducted a market survey of about 400 classmates for their business plan.
“We asked if they drink coffee, their favorite kind, how often they would get coffee if it was available and a bunch of other stuff,” said student Avery Gossett.
Deja Brew will serve students and faculty before classes and during a study-hall period every day.
LaRue Coffee will provide the equipment and coffee to the student-run shop.
The high school is using an annual Career and Technical Education grant to help make Deja Brew a reality.
“We set aside $9,000 to $10,000 and we are only going to use around half of that,” Burg said. “That was the great deal with LaRue, because if we buy and sell their product they let us use some of their machines for free.”
The coffee shop will give students hands-on experience in entrepreneurship, said Dan Smith, a Metropolitan Community College instructor.
“This class is about students who are interested in running their own business, and learning about what all that entails, and what that process is like,” he said. “So to have them actually create their own business is huge.”