Sometimes, a guy just has to stop for a second.
You know: So he can get his bearings, for, uh, gift-bearing.
Which is exactly what Andrew Grigsby was doing Monday morning at Trinity Christian School.
The first-grader was standing, stock-still, in a chapel transformed.
“Lotta stuff,” he said, and he was right.
That’s because the worship space is doing double-duty this week, as the home to Trinity’s in-school Christmas store.
This is the second year for the enterprise, which offers an array of stocking-stuffer gifts for parents and siblings.
Students on Monday picked through coffee mugs full of candy.
And ornaments for the tree.
And, bath and body sets, mini-gingerbread houses and lots of other stuff, including a nifty keychain that was a flashlight and bottle opener in one.
Like the latter, there’s more to Trinity’s shop than first appears.
As it turns out, Andrew’s older schoolmates in fifth grade did all the work themselves.
They selected and ordered the inventory, which included purchase orders and invoices.
They worked on in-school print and video advertising campaigns to announce the store.
There were job applications and interviews, too.
Even more importantly, they had to “apply” for a business loan — a process whereby it was learned that such loans are subject to approval.
“The idea is to make it as real-world as possible,” said teacher Amanda Darby, who came up with the lesson plan for her “enrichment” classes at Trinity.
Call it a Business 101 primer that any budding entrepreneur could use, she said.
“This is what it’s like to run a business,” she said.
That, she knows.
She was her family’s business partner when she was the same as those Trinity fifth-graders.
Her parents owned and operated a campground, and she worked right alongside.
Every summer, when she was another year older, she got a new set of responsibilities to match her age.
All proceeds will go to a DIY renovation project on the school playground: What Darby calls “big life skills.”
Avery Bland’s skills were most definitely in demand Monday, meanwhile.
She was helping staff the gift-wrap station, and it was bustling.
Avery was averaging three seconds a gift.
“What do you think, Noah?” she asked after wrapping a coffee mug into something colorful, and unrecognizable, for under the tree.
“Pretty cool,” she said.
Lena Darby was playing it cool out of necessity.
When asked what she was getting her parents for Christmas, the first-grader started to answer, then stopped herself.
“Can’t tell ya,” she said, glancing over at her mom, Amanda Darby.
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