by Princess Bernard-Oti, ’18
On Monday, April 10th and Wednesday, April 12th, an experiment took place to test which drinks Cary Academy students would respond to . This experiment was used to both determine if putting a possible café or pop-up carts should be part of the school’s future and to encourage friendly entrepreneurial competition. Overall, the Great CA Drink Cart Challenge of 2017 was very successful. Thirteen teams participated, who were each given only a hundred dollars of seed money to purchase supplies necessary for their specific drink cart. This meant that students were responsible for finding the best prices and products to make their drinks efficiently. The goal for the teams was to earn the greatest profit possible by selling their drinks, creating CA’s first entrepreneurial contest. These teams marketed their products, choose their locations and times to sell, and price their own items according to their strategy. Many teams sold their drinks to students before school, during breaks between classes, during lunch, and even after school. Part of the challenge was for the teams to figure out when students would be most likely to buy their product, which often depended on the type of beverage they sold. Some of the beverages tested included lemonade, coffee, bubble tea, milkshakes, slushies, and soda. In a very close race, the winning team of the Drink Cart Challenge was the Iced Milk Tea and Iced Chai Tea with Matcha and Boba Cart, run by Grace Jin (’17), Samuel Chow (’18), Chelsea Fang (’18), Shaan Dhawan (’18), and Thuc Dzu (’18), who turned an impressive profit in the two-day run. In celebration of their win, the team got a complimentary pizza lunch with the head of school, Dr. Mike Ehrhardt. The results of this challenge were very positive and all of Cary Academy including students, teachers, parents, and staff were all supportive and engaged in the drink competition. For the community, it was a high-energy and enjoyable experience to try out different drinks that they could get right on campus. Aesha Desai (’18), a participant in the challenge, describes what she gained from the experience:
“I learned how to see through the eyes of the people who have to deal with selling to others every day, and I learned how to handle big crowds and how to change prices according to consumers’ wants”.
Some drinks were in such high demand that carts ran out of their products within hours . In an effort to help the Administration determine student demand and the times that are most popular to sell, all of the teams submitted detailed reports about their marketing choices, products, and finances. Special thanks go out to the developers of this challenge, Sheila Hall, Teresa Porter, Susan Ferraro, Mina Harris, and Mike Ehrhardt, who helped make it a success. This was a great experience for both the entrepreneurs and the customers, bringing the community closer through tasty beverages.