Warren County’s DECA club members set up as food vendors for community and school events

Devin Modesitt, Karenzo Hogue and Ethan Baldwin working at Festival of Leaves.

Two DECA members, Makayla Grant and Devin Modesitt, have created a school-based food enterprise called DECA Tailgaters. DECA is a club where students create projects incorporating marketing, finance, management and/or hospitality. These projects are then presented in front of judges at statewide competitions.

DECA Tailgaters find volunteers to work community food vendor events, selling a wide range of foods. The vendors sell BBQ sandwiches, hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled chicken tenders and a new popular favorite, walking tacos. BBQ sandwiches and walking tacos feature Richard Gardner’s signature Carolina Dreamin’ homemade items, such as sweet BBQ, spicy garlic sauce and homemade chilly.

The two girls have set up food vendors at three car shows, including the “Trunk or Treating” that took place on Main Street, the SMS PTSO Fun Run Fall Festival and the annual Festival of Leaves. At the Festival of Leaves, the girls partnered their project with Karenzo Hogue, Ethan Baldwin and Michael Kelly, to run a bigger and very successful food vendor.

DECA Tailgaters not only sets up as a food vendor in the community, but they’ve also managed a few of their school’s concession stands to raise money for their club. The girls were given available dates for game concessions, and they found volunteers in DECA to help work the game food concessions. Makayla and Devin said, “We like being hands-on in our project by preparing food and taking customers’ orders, because we enjoy getting to see everything finally come together.”

Makayla and Devin also said, “all the profits earned go towards helping pay for our DECA chapter’s annual State Conference, held in Virginia Beach.” The two hope to possibly continue DECA Tailgaters next year, and have more game concessions coming up, including a rival volleyball game vs. Skyline on October 30th and a JV game vs. Skyline on November 7th.