The Park Storiole, run by members of the DECA club, was recently recertified as a gold-level school-based enterprise (SBE) for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

DECA advisor Abby Lugo said the award is a national honor that recognizes the students’ hard work in their business.

“Only 461 different schools in the U.S. have been certified gold,” Lugo said. “Basically what this does is it takes a look at the small business enterprise that we run, and we have to write about how we run our business.” 

According to sophomore Ari Rose, DECA is very proud of being recognized for the gold certification. 

“It’s a huge accomplishment in the eyes of DECA,” Rose said. “Adding that to our store — it’s a good deal.”

According to sophomore Alexa Nguyen, the recognition for their work was especially gratifying given the hours they put into their application paper. 

“It feels rewarding because we spent a lot of time planning and writing that paper — it was time-consuming,” Nguyen said. “With all that time and effort that we put in, getting awarded that — it’s definitely rewarding.”

Along with the certification, students Alexa Nguyen, Solomon Demeke and Amaya Smith were invited to the DECA International Career Development Conference (ICDC) in Miami this April. Lugo said the opportunity is especially significant because they were able to bypass district competitions due to their certification.

“I’m super excited for the kids because this is a really big national award, and (they were) invited to the ICDC conference,” Lugo said. “These kids got a direct invite there as a pathway from being a gold-certified chapter or gold-certified business.”

Nguyen said she learned the importance of persistence and drive in the face of adversity while going through the application process.

“The biggest thing that I’ve learned is there’s definitely going to be obstacles that you have to overcome, but it’s just a matter of not giving up,” Nguyen said. “When you put your mind to something, you can do it if you push yourself and motivate yourself in the right ways. You can be successful in any way that you intend.”

According to Lugo, having younger students get this opportunity will be beneficial for the Storiole in years to come. 

“My hope with having the sophomores work on the (application) paper this year and then bringing them to Florida, is that next year, they step in and become the store managers,” Lugo said. “They can take the knowledge they have up until this point and what they’re going to learn in Orlando, and really apply it to help grow our business and our store more.”