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Give Now
Written by Ben Gardner, Class of 2020
The King’s High School DECA program will be hosting its 12th annual Holiday Gift Show on Friday, November 22nd, from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm! With over 55 vendors partnered with students including glassybaby, Sugar and Spoon, Puppies, AT&T, Pete’s Toffee, Salt Blade, Wyndham Destinations, Mariners Wear and more, the Holiday Show offers a wide variety of vendors to get a head start on holiday shopping!
The King’s Holiday Show is a tradition treasured by staff, students, and community members alike. The show offers a true, one-stop shopping experience for busy families and helps kick off the holiday season. In addition to providing a fantastic time, all profit made from the show will directly support the King’s High School DECA program, one of the strongest in the state. As the holiday show is completely student-led, students will gain valuable experience in customer service and marketing, helping them both in DECA competitions and in their future careers.
The Holiday Show is currently entering its 12th year under its strategic operations manager Marian Morris, the Marketing, Mock Trial and Business teacher at King’s High School. The show this year is organized and led by DECA students Ben Gardner (Senior) and Duncan Angiuli (Junior).
The Holiday Show grows larger every year thanks to the hard work put in by Mrs. Morris and the student leaders to constantly improve the show. When the show was founded, it consisted of a small amount of student-made holiday products sold by the students. The show started in the high school lounge, then moved to Schirmer Auditorium, and then eventually grew into the King’s Garden Gym.
In the beginnings of the Holiday Show, all students sold products that were homemade. As the years went by, Mrs. Morris started to give students the option to contact local vendors and partner with them for the show. Last year, almost half of the students had a professional business partner. This year, over 90% of students have contacted and collaborated with local business professionals in the greater Seattle area, learning key skills in communication, professionalism, selling, and simply being comfortable collaborating and talking with adults.
The Holiday show has a history of enabling students to utilize the marketing skills they learn in the classroom in the real world. It offers a 3-Dimensional learning experience that is extremely beneficial in furthering the understanding of the real-life applications of what students learn in school and how it can affect their future careers and goals/opportunities.