This past Wednesday, September 10th, Pawprint Coffee Company opened their doors in the Hub for the first time this year, re-igniting a student favorite stop before and after school. The opening day festivities started around 7:15 AM Wednesday and included live jazz music by Westminster students to fill the atmosphere. The morning was filled with plenty of students and faculty and a rather exciting atmosphere.The company is solely student-led and focuses on cultivating leadership habits by allowing students in the entrepreneurship class to manage the various aspects of a business. Brian Maloy, the teacher and supervisor of the and Pawprint Coffee Company enlightens upon various internal changes to soon take place:
“Slow changes. In past years what’s happened is, everyone gets excited, they have a bunch of ideas, and they tend to all fly out at once. Then, when no one’s owning an idea, they kind of fall apart. So we’re trying really hard this year — we have a big whiteboard calendar on the wall, and really trying to map things out. […] Then, when the rollout happens, hopefully it’s a better prepared rollout, not a haphazard rollout. That’s probably the biggest switch.”
In addition to the changes being made to the inner workings of Pawprint, Seilback hints at future additions to Pawprint that will not only benefit the employees, but the community and customers too:
”We’re hoping to do our first Pawprint and Student Council car meetup, so it’ll be like cars and coffee. Hopefully that’ll get the word out about Pawprint to other communities that aren’t necessarily a part of Westminster […] and then we’ll also have seasonal things. Things for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and then things that’ll be in relation with what’s happening at the school, so things for Spirit Week and then different events that we have.”
Additionally, Pawprint has established itself as a center for school community and student leadership, and they only continue to grow and improve year after year. For the upcoming school year, Mr. Maloy highlights the benefits of being involved in a community such as this:
“The really cool part, from the employee side, is they’re walking away genuinely saying, I helped run a business. They aren’t just working shifts at pawprint, they’re running the finances, they’re running the operations, they’re making orders. […] So, in that way, they walk away having a way better working than just a textbook version of how to run a business, they’ve actually done it, which is very cool.”
The business side of the company not only teaches students the many habits and qualities of a strong leader and entrepreneur, but also makes a deep impact for the students who are customers. Over the years, this modern addition to the school has formed a community where all students, employees or customers, feel a sense of belonging and impact. Senior employee Caden Seilback highlights the environment the coffee shop has developed:
“I think it’s a super cool experience that even if you’re not apart of the business side of things you can really take into full effect, because coming up here in the hub and hanging out that’ll even just get you to see what kinds of things are happening and what things we’re doing as students that, you know, you can do as well.”
Pawprint looks forward to an exciting year of community filled with novel changes for both student-employees and student-customers, and the company will continue striving to improve based upon experience and student feedback for years to come.
