Grandview High School students develop mini economy with GrandBrew, school store in Colorado

Grandview High School has built itself into a mini economy by providing its students and staff with a place to get a drink that helps them to wake up, think, and create. And it's all served with a youthful smile.

GrandBrew is a program by the Integrated Learning Center community where they serve a variety of hot drinks to students and teachers.

"All of our drinks are $1, except for our drink of the month which is $2," said Paisley Hemminger, Special Education (ILC) Teacher at Grandview High School.

On the menu is lemonade, hot chocolate, and of course, coffee. The drink of the month of October is "Children of the Candy Corn" which is a mixture of pineapples, ice, orange soda, whipped cream, and topped off with candy corn.

"It's beautiful," said Alaysia Ornelas, a senior and GrandBrew employee at Grandview High School. "It just looks cool. The layering looks amazing and then I hear it tastes like an orange creamsicle.

Hemminger leads the program and organizes the drink orders. She labels the drinks, places them in drink carriers, and sends the students on their way to deliver the drinks to the classrooms.

"The sticky note tells us what the drink is and where we are going," Ornelas said.

One of the places GrandBrew delivers is the Grandview School Store, which is also led by the students. Here they sell everything from shirts, polos, towels, and beads. They also make their own custom designs which they put on the clothing.

"I like the part that we create all the designs," said Destiny Rodriguez. "It's not something that we just pull off online or that we have done in the past. We put a lot of thought into it." 

Whether it's wearing the school spirit or drinking something that uplifts your spirit, giving the students tools to succeed once the final bell rings is the goal of both programs.

"As students, we are able to collaborate together to have this store and even GrandBrew downstairs and it shows that we are able to collaborate, sell to our peers, and to collaborate with them as well," said Tristian Alur

"Just seeing them learn real-life job skills they can take to a job outside of here it just makes my heart happy," said Hemminger.