This year’s annual Students vs. Staff game ended with a victory for the staff, who beat the students by eleven in a 53-42 victory. Through donations at the game, the fourth annual DECA basketball event raised $900 for charity and donated it to the American Cancer Society through NJ DECA. 

To fulfill its chapter requirement for a community service event, Cinnaminson DECA organized an event to raise money and awareness for the American Cancer Society, in the form of a basketball game. This game was held in the Commitment Gym on Thursday, November 21. In addition to raising $900 for charity, the event also helped promote Cinnaminson High School’s DECA chapter. 

“The event has progressed greatly and it’s really nice,” substitute teacher Greg Still said about the event. “The kids are really into it, and the staff are doing their part… we really have a great turnout today.” 

With some friendly banter between students and their teachers throughout the week leading up to the game, there was a lot of hype built up leading to the game. 

“I love it, it gets everyone coming out, people have been talking about it all week,” senior Tommy Lorimer said.

Both sides were confident in their team’s ability to win before the game and up until the end of the first half it was a close game. But the tides quickly switched after halftime as the teachers pulled away with a lead. 

The staff team this year consisted of multiple basketball coaches and previous players, including Bret Jenkins, Brian Jenkins, Travis Igboin, Janae Dockins, Jeb Howley, Lou Arnold, Brandon Bond, and Kevin Merrill among others. After last year’s loss, the teachers came prepared to win.

“I like the teachers’ chances today, I feel like we’ve assembled our best team yet in the four years we’ve been doing this, so I think we’re going to do very well,” Still, the head coach of the staff’s team, said. 

The idea for the annual basketball fundraiser started in 2021 when a recently graduated CHS student turned his love for the sport into a way to raise money. 

As a club that helps prepare students for future careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management, many of DECA’s events are student-driven so its members can gain valuable hands-on experience in the field. 

During their summer leadership program, three students, junior Emily Renouf and sophomores Taylor Hubbard and Brady Honeyford, volunteered to organize and manage the club’s community service. They played a big part in helping make the basketball event successful. 

The process of planning and organizing the game began months prior to the event. 

“We started planning a couple of months ago,” Renouf said. “Starting just by getting the players and figuring out the logistics of the event: who we were going to order t-shirts from, where we were getting food from, basically just started with going through the game beginning to end and what we need to make that successful.” 

Cinnaminson’s DECA Advisor Roger Roslowski handled the logistics, paperwork, and all of the behind-the-scenes responsibilities. 

“I will fill out all the necessary paperwork to get the fundraising approved, get the facilities arranged and locked in for that evening,” Roslowski said. “I oversee all of the planning so all of the letters that we send out to the area businesses and the email communications that we send to the staff, students, sign up Google forms all have to go through me to make sure that everything is done correctly before we can publish it and send things out so I will be the proofreader and handle all of that fun stuff.” 

At the event, DECA members’ jobs included collecting money at the door, selling ribbons, working the concession stand, and handling the crowd in the stands. 

According to Hubbard, they had to learn to work together as a team, which was challenging at times. This included being open to compromising as well as learning how to organize and help finalize plans. 

“I would also say we did have some challenges trying to figure out specifics of what food to have, the t-shirt design was a big challenge because we didn’t want to stray too much from last year but also wanted to make sure it was new,” Renouf added. 

Another challenge was trying to make the event bigger and better, which meant improving upon past years’ events. Club members wanted to get more people to join and help out, such as recruiting the cheerleaders and band. 

“This year we were able to get the cheerleaders to come out, which is something we were not able to do in past years,” Roslowski said. “We have the national anthem sung by one of our students and we will have the marching band there.”

As the vice president of hospitality for DECA, Honeyford said he has learned from his experience organizing this year’s event. 

“It’s a lot harder than it seems to be,” Honeyford said. “You know organizing an event and bringing people together is fun, but it is harder than I expected. I am glad I have this experience now.” 

After the game, DECA names an MVP for each team. Special Education teacher Jeb Howley, took home MVP this year for leading the staff’s team to victory with a great performance. On the students’ team, the MVP of the game was senior Paul Magin for his dominant plays.