St George's School pupils show upcycled products at market day

St George's School students Genea Huijs, Jemma Rasmusen, Ben Hickford and Flynn Gilbertson with their potted plants and pine cones. Emmanuel Marara oversaw them on the day. Photo / Bevan Conley

St George's School pupilss were at the Whanganui River Market last week to sell products made of upcycled goods.

One group of pupils had turned items like empty baked bean cans into pot plant holders, while another made the smart and simple move of collecting and selling pine cones.

It is part of a social enterprise effort that they are making for their humanities unit in social studies.

Programme co-ordinator Emmanuel Marara said the school is trying to give students the opportunity to simulate what would happen in real life business situations.

"Reality is, when you're learning, a lot of the time you read stories and you talk about maths scenario's and it's all simulated," he said.

"What business enterprise does is allow students to work with currency and in business situations in as close to a real life situation as possible."

St George's school introduced business and social enterprise into its curriculum six years ago when it was suggested to them by local businesswoman Sharon Bryant.

"She saw the benefits of us introducing the scheme at a school level, it's a national scheme that's available and we follow the curriculum from that," Marara said.

"It has been challenging, every year is different, we try to make sure one year is for profit and the alternate year is a social enterprise scheme."

Fifty-four Years 7 and 8 pupils take part in the studies in which they choose business partners, are assigned job titles and come up with products or services they would like to sell.

They have a partnership with Whanganui Pak'nSave that allows them to sell products to customers in-store.

"They're working with real products, real customers and the money that they would be making in sales is calculated in potential profit," Marara said.

"The only difference in this instance is because they don't put up the initial capital for the products, they go back to Pak'nSave, which runs this for us at a loss."

The students' social enterprise model runs on three p[rinciples: that their actions must be good for people, they must help the planet and they need to turn a profit.

The school pupils will be back at the Whanganui River Market on Saturday, July21, with more groups as those that have been away on holiday will have returned.

Last week they managed to sell out of potted plants before the market ended and also more than 20 bags of pine cones were sold at $5 a bag.

The funds will be donated to the Salvation Army..