ADRIAN — Some Adrian High School students are getting real-world marketing experience by operating the school’s new store, Maple Market.

The market is entirely student-driven, from research-based decisions on what inventory to stock and how much to charge for it, to the salesforce itself.

Teacher Kim Gehres’ business students develop ideas and marketing strategies, choose the items to sell and the designs on them, and do the research needed for pricing and marketing. The store is staffed by a small core group of those students.

“They work hard in here,” senior Mia Reynolds, who serves as the market’s unofficial sales manager, said of that core group. “They do a lot of the sales, they greet customers” — and, she added with a laugh, some of them go the extra mile to make sales to passers-by: “They’ll be like, ‘Come here! Buy some stuff!’ ”

Aja Hayford is one of those especially enthusiastic salespeople, described by Gehres as “our personal selling specialist.”

“I think it’s awesome,” she said of the new market and the opportunities it gives the students involved. “I think it’s a great way to get students to speak up.”

Reynolds’ experience taking marketing classes at the LISD Tech Center gave her important expertise — such as teaching her fellow students how to use the Square point of sale system — for her role in helping get the Maple Market off the ground.

She said the store has been a real learning experience for everyone involved. “We’re still figuring out the way of things,” she said. “It’s all been a learning curve for all of us.”

The market is open Wednesdays and Fridays from 7:20 to 7:40 a.m. It is housed in a small room that once served as the school bookstore and was then a storage area for many years.

Plans to renovate the space for its current use began about a year and a half ago, Gehres said. 

The store is still a work in progress, with the next step being to install plumbing and a sink so that popcorn and slushie machines can be added.

“We’ve had great support from school administration,” she said.

Presently, the market’s inventory is focused on Maple gear and laptop charging cords. But recently a wildly popular set of items were part of the merchandise: Charlie Backpack Buttons, featuring images of the school’s beloved resource dog, Charlie.

“He is very special to the kids,” Gehres said — a statement borne out by the number of students who stopped to greet Charlie in the hallway by the store on their way to class early on a recent November morning.

Charlie obligingly snuggled up close to them while they petted him, or even rolled over on his back for belly rubs, while his handler, school resource officer Joshua Perry, chatted with students as they came along.

Gehres’ students came up with the button idea and developed the campaign, which saw a series of three different buttons that each got their big reveal in principal Sam Skeels’ newsletter before going on sale for $5, with the proceeds going toward scholarships for AHS seniors. The buttons, billed as “A Paw-some Way to Give Back,” were a big hit.

As time goes on, Maple Market’s inventory will expand to include items such as hats, Maple stickers, and school supplies. Gehres said the students might also be able to do pop-up stores at places such as school sporting events or at nearby Springbrook Middle School.

No matter what, “it will always be student-driven,” she said.

In the process, the students are learning not only marketing skills, but social skills as well, all of which will serve them well in the world of work. And, Gehres said, the market gives students something else as well: another place for them to feel like they can fit in. “Each of these students has a new place to belong,” she said.