LYNNFIELD — A trio of Lynnfield High juniors is proving that anything’s possible if you set your mind to it.
Addison Munion, Gianna Micieli and Rori Caprio, founders of the school’s new Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) club said the idea to form the club came last year while working on their civics action project.
“Personally, we wanted more out of our education,” DECA President Micieli said during the students’ presentation at a recent School Committee meeting. “Our topic was limited elective options and we wanted to expand our horizons, so we were looking into home economics, science and true crime electives and then we stumbled across DECA. We wanted to gain real-world experiences. We figured we could bring a club to Lynnfield that had networking connections and something for everyone.”
Munion, the club’s vice president, opened the presentation with a brief description of DECA, saying, “DECA prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in marketing, hospitality, finances, and management through engaging in various competitions. DECA’s mission is to empower students with knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in business-related fields, as well as the real world.”
She said she researched DECA by watching videos on TikTok where she saw students dressed in business attire competing in various events.
“I thought if towns around us could have DECA, we could have DECA,” Munion said.
The students set up a meeting with high school Principal Patricia Puglisi and visited Manchester-Essex Regional High, where Puglisi served as principal prior to coming to Lynnfield.
“From there, we fell in love,” Munion said.
Puglisi referred the trio to teacher Matthew Robbins.
“He was very qualified to run it as he was the business teacher at the school,” Munion said.
The trio then started to recruit other students. The response was overwhelming.
“We first asked friends and peers to join. We had to turn away people because we couldn’t have that many for our first year. It was huge because when you are starting a club, it is difficult to find members, but with DECA, so many people knew about it and were interested in it. It was really easy to find members.”
The club met regularly before and after school to prepare for the District 6 Conference at the Doubletree Hotel in Danvers in January. Lynnfield sent 18 students to the competition, which featured 16 area schools. Despite being in its first year, the club walked away with several top awards. Munion (business marketing), Nandana Nishanth (accounting applications), Siri Tudi (hotel and lodging management), Micieli (resource management) and Marianna Axiotakis (principles of entrepreneurship) took first place in their respective events, while Rori Caprio (business marketing service) took second and Ava Cook and Aislin McCormack (marketing management team) and Lily Williams (apparel and accessories marketing) earned fifth-place finishes.
“Basically, a lot of it was role playing,” Caprio said. “You are given a business scenario, and you have to find solutions. For example, Addison’s problem was a struggling cleaning business. Other projects and long-term assignments were also offered.”
“That was super exciting for us,” Munion said. “That was huge as it was our first year, but it showed that Lynnfield has some really great students and that Mr. Dobbins is doing an incredible job teaching us how to be well-prepared.”
From there, nine members competed in the State Career Development Conference (SCDC) in Boston, where it won a new chapter award.
Micieli says the three-day conference was “very intensive and an eye-opening experience.
“It was districts times 100,” she said. “It was super rewarding because we thought if we could send one person to states, we’d be proud, but we ended up sending nine. It was inspiring because there were almost 4,000 students all across the state interested in the same thing — bettering themselves and preparing for the future.
“It was definitely rewarding because it was our ‘we made it as a club’ moment. Without Mr. Dobbins, we wouldn’t have been able to do that. It was definitely a really great experience.”
Munion said another huge part of the state conference was the chance to meet business professionals and college admissions counselors.
“As a junior, it was really important to get my name out there and DECA did that,” Munion said. “Schools like Bentley, College of Charleston, Babson and UMass Amherst, all of which I am interested in, so that was huge for me. We also got to meet with business professionals serving as judges.”
Munion said that while the state conference was “serious,” Lynnfield students had the chance to mingle with students from other communities.
“States was the best experience ever, and now it’s making me so motivated to get back there,” Munion said.
Micieli said that while the club did not advance to the International Career Development Conference in Orlando, club members are motivated to make it next year.
“Not making it just gives us even more drive to make it next year,” Micielli said. “Hopefully, once we expand our chapter that can be a really attainable goal for us.”
Munion said the entire DECA experience was all about learning.
“It was about social skills, networking skills, presentation skills and confidence,” she said. “I watched kids my own age get up in front of 4,000 teenagers doing some things that I would have thought were embarrassing, but now I see them as inspiration. It gave me more confidence to be here before you today, and I feel really prepared to come back next year and win a spot at ICSD.
“That was a great presentation,” School Committee Chair Kristen Elworthy said. “It is really impressive.”
“This is unbelievable,” committee member Kim Baker Donahue said. “This is so amazing to have these opportunities and learn these skills at this age.”
Committee member Jamie Hayman said he was “so proud of you guys.
“It is really hard work to start something like this and to have it start as a Civics Action Project, be able to see it through to its creation and have a lot of success, you should be really proud of yourselves. I know we as a community are really proud of you.”
Jim Dillon thanked the trio and Puglisi and Dobbins “for having the initiative to bring this program to Lynnfield High School” and complemented the students on “their real-world skills and confidence.”
“You guys just took the ball and ran with it and I can’t wait to see what you do next year,” committee member Kate DePrizio said.
Caprio gave a shout-out to Dobbins, saying she went into DECA after taking Dobbins’ marketing class. “I always felt excited in that class. At DECA, I definitely wanted to stick to marketing, which I never would have thought about before. Mr. Dobbin’s impact in that class made me feel more knowledgeable and more educated and more confident going into the competition.”
