For the 2020-21 school year Uniontown High School participated in Project-Based Learning.

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects, according to www.pblworks.org/what-is-pbl

Each UHS participating student chose a project that they presented to a board of teachers. The incentive: students got to opt-out of finals.

Uniontown High School Students Kristy Beene and Mason O’Brien, both juniors, decided to start a vinyl t-shirt business.

“They are custom-made shirts or a design that the customers choose,” Beene said.

“There was a lot of deciding that came with starting this business,” Beene said. “During the first semester of the 2020-21 school year, (we) decided that the best way to start this business was to fundraise the money in order to get the machines and supplies necessary.”

“We started this business in Mr. Feagins room, at UHS,” Beene said. “We chose him to…help us in the money and business itself.”

“One of the first orders of business was a name,” she said. “There were many names we considered but the one we chose was The U.”

“The first semester we raised the money needed through fundraisers and purchased a silhouette cameo and a heat press,”
Beene said. “By the end of the semester, we were starting to get up and going. At the start of the second semester, we added Skyler Coulter to our team as an extra hand for making shirts.”

Coulter is a sophomore.

“We have been staying busy with everyone’s support for our small business,” she said. “We have been so happy that we are able to make products that our customers love!”

 

This student-led business will be set up at Good Ol’Days in Fort Scott making custom shirts and water bottles.

 

“We hope that this will be a good aspect for our business and help us grow, both with customers and knowledge of the business industry itself,” Beene said. “Next year we hope to expand even more and invest in a screen printing machine.”