Old Rochester Regional High School students Brendan Burke, Colin Carroll and chapter cofounder Edward Gonet IV will proudly compete April 23-27 at the DECA International Career Development Conference at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
Other ORR students are making the trip and that may be the bigger story.
“Kira, Kinsley, Aidan … the rest of us … will talk with students from around the country so we can better our chapter and our schools,” said David Ditata, referencing “Aspire” workshops and meetings.
The senior copresident of ORR DECA, who serves alongside junior copresident Kira Sarkarati, said that they, along with members Aiden Harrington and Kinsley Trout, will focus on their rare opportunity to share with and learn from students from faraway places.
As a senior, Ditata is looking forward to acquiring skills to carry his DECA experience onto a college chapter at the University of New Hampshire where he plans to attend in 2022-23.
“If they don’t have it there, they’ll teach me how to bring it there. If they do have it, I’ll learn kind of how to better the college’s DECA,” said the Rochester resident, calling his plight of not qualifying for the international competition “a blessing in disguise.”
Sarkarati, 17, joined ORR’s DECA chapter in her freshman year after friends in the club encouraged her to try it out.
“That hooked me in,” said the former Mattapoisett resident now living in Marion. “At the time when I joined, I didn’t know much about business or have any interest in it …” But, as a result of that invitation and the participation that followed, a new world opened to Sarkarati, who realized she had made a choice that will impact her future.
As a freshman, she learned about general marketing and has since become interested in apparel and accessories marketing. As a retail worker at Old Navy, she is familiar with national-brand marketing but has also maintained an interest in smaller, independent operations.
“A lot of the questions I usually get are focused on bigger stores,” said Sarkarati, 17.
Originally known as Distributive Education Clubs of America, DECA is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit corporation that pulls together high school or college chapters in local, regional and even international competitions.
When Ditata was a high school freshman, he thought DECA was just a student group to talk about money and random topics involving business. But by his second year of involvement, ORR had established its membership in the international organization.
In the two years since ORR’s chapter was officially founded, the Tri-Town public high school’s business group has seen sustained growth. Ditata estimates that the Tri-Town’s chapter has doubled in size.
“A lot (of students) signed up at the beginning of the year,” he said. “It’s a big commitment, a lot of traveling.”
The Atlanta trip is costing each student $800 including the round-trip flight and hotel, but Ditata was able to use fundraisers to abate the entire cost.
“DECA is such a great club in our community,” he said, noting that word of mouth resulted in some donations. The school chapter held a “Go Fund Me” campaign in which donations were divided among the students. There was also a raffle for an Apple watch, and Ditata sold Valentine’s Day chocolates in addition to other activities.
“Hearing that cost makes you want to work harder,” he said.
The daunting expenses leveraged by the necessary travel involved was temporarily abated by the coronavirus pandemic that, like curriculum, became a remote-access format. The District 8 competition scheduled in Hyannis was canceled in favor of a remote-access competition held January 11-18.
“Now we’re back in person sitting right in front of a judge,” said Ditata.
An important challenge looms on the horizon for ORR’s chapter, according to Ditata, who said the parent organization requires its member schools to have at least one business class on their curriculum. In ORR’s case, that must happen by the end of the 2022-23 academic year in order to avoid being under the threat of a chapter shutdown.
While modern-day high school students tend to fill up their calendars with clubs and activities, DECA is a particularly demanding club.
Sarkarati is also a member of the ORR Drama Club, the Community Service Club and a few other smaller clubs, but DECA is the most time-consuming of her extra-curricular activities. If she is not preparing her own work, she is helping get members of the team prepared and assisting in the registration process.
“Definitely, it’s made me more interested in business colleges,” she said.
By Mick Colageo