“DECA has impacted the lives of more than ten million students, educators, school administrators and business,” according to www.deca.org.

And now, DECA has made its mark on Woodland Regional High School.

The program was started at Woodland in early December of 2014. Ten students currently run the program and advisor Chris Tomlin believes it has had a lot of success in just a few months. The school store is selling a variety of merchandise specific to the needs and wants of students. A survey was conducted in September to get an idea of what the students would want to have in stock. As of now, they are selling merchandise such as school supplies, tissues, and lanyards and is open first and second blocks each day. DECA also sold “mid-term survival kits” in the weeks preceding midterms. The kits included sticky notes, index cards, index card rings, pencils, pens, and highlighters. It was offered for approximately two dollars less than what the items would cost individually.

And Tomlin, along with co-advisor, Jenna Broadbent, have more plans for DECA in the future.

DECA plans to open an online store. Woodland’s DECA webpage will carry merchandise and clothing items, so that alumni and parents, along with students, will be able to purchase items directly from the website. The ability to buy online will help solve the issue of having to keep the store stocked.

Since DECA is a national organization that focuses on training students for the finance, hospitality and business fields, they hold competitions where members of programs from all over the country are exposed to numerous opportunities which coincide with these fields.

“We are going to use the school store to train our members to look at things differently.”

However,  this year will focus mainly on the school store.

“The big drive right now is trying to get students to be aware that the school store is open,” said Tomlin.

Students are still welcome to join DECA and interested students are encouraged to pick up an application in the school store.