Wilkes-Barre Area High School Principal Colleen Robatin makes the first official purchase at the school’s new store, the “Pack Shack,” after a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday morning. She bought a $1 bag of Goldfish Crackers, but then bought a long-sleeve Wolfpack shirt. The debut opening saw a long line of administrators, faculty and students eager to purchase gear and snacks.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
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Wilkes-Barre Area High School Pack Shack President Julia Litwin cuts the ceremonial ribbon before the school store officially opened Thursday morning. Other freshman students enrolled as the first class of the new Business Academy held the ribbon and watched from behind.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Logan Sincavage, a grade 9 student in Wilkes-Barre Area School District’s Business Academy, talks with Superintendent Brian Costello after a sale at the new Pack Shack school store Thursday. All students in the new Academy helped create the store from the beginning, down to the merchandise being sold.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
The Wilkes-Barre Area School District Wolfpack mascot stands outside the new “Pack Shack” while students from the district’s new Business Academy listen to officers thank those who helped develop the new school store, behind them.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
PLAINS TWP. — The first sale may have looked a bit disappointing.
Wilkes-Barre Area High School Principal Colleen Robatin stepped up to the counter snapping a $1 bill and even admitting she had to “buy something for a dollar,” then followed through by purchasing the first goods from the new school store, the “Pack Shack.” She purchased Goldfish Crackers.
“We knew we needed something that would cost a dollar,” Superintendent Brian Costello joked right before she made the purchase.
But the inauspicious start turned into a deluge of buyers once the student thank-you speeches were made, ceremonial ribbon cut and doors opened for business at the “Pack Shack” Thursday morning. Robatin herself bought a long sleeve gray “Wolfpack” shirt. Other administrators quickly lined up to buy shirts and hoodies. School Board President Joe Caffrey said he had been instructed to buy a tie-dyed Wolfpack shirt for his wife.
“I said the store isn’t even open, how do you know they have one.” Turns out she saw it online, which is one of the many facets creating the shop involved for the 24 ninth-grade students enrolled in the district’s new business academy who worked out all the details of the shop.
“Everyone was included,” stressed freshman Julia Litwin, who was put in charge of the shack this year. The first cohort of the academy worked together to design shirts and other Wolfpack-themed merchandise, decorate the store, set up how it will be run by teams taking turns each school day morning when the shop is set to be open from 8:25 a.m. to about 8:50 a.m., and creating an internet presence. “Everyone gets a shift.”
While Logan Sincavage was ready and eager to man the sales counter before the opening, the parade of patrons made him and the others on that first shift work a little more quickly as the minutes ticked by. The first flurry of teachers and administrators ended with Costello buying a Wolfpack Lanyard and shirt, but the rush continued.
Many of the crew behind the Pack Shack lined up, wearing polo shirts with the store name. It was so busy one person stood outside in front the crowd still looking to get in, making sure the room didn’t exceed occupancy capacity. “This is getting hard,” Sincavage said. Within 20 minutes, stock on the Carolina blue hoodies started running low enough in one size that there were no more in the cabinets behind the counter and the store staff had to pull them off the display racks.
Litwin herself bought a shirt, and like most of the first customers, got a round of applause from the crowd in the hallway upon exiting the Shack.
“I think this is a great opportunity for everyone,” she said.
Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish