Videography By: Alex Buksdorf
Our annual FATE Student Showcase is always the HIGHLIGHT of the year! This year was our seventh showcase and we continue to be blown away by how impressive our FATE students are! We also had a new venue this year and want to give a special thank you to Newlab Detroit for hosting our event!
Our 9th and 10th graders have been hard at work preparing for this event for the past few months!
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Five teams of 9th graders pitched marketing/advertising campaigns for Merit and a winner was declared on the spot.
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Four teams of 10th graders had their Merit product collections on display for pre-sale by showcase attendees as well as online at www.meritgoodness.com until June 18th, and were sneakily scored by Secret Shoppers who announced a winner at the end of the night!
Our 9th graders came to impress as they presented their marketing and advertising campaigns for Merit which included a 60-second commercial and print ad. These presentations were delivered in front of a panel of judges and an audience of family members, mentors, program partners, and donors!
This year’s judges included:
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Dr. D’Wayne Edwards: Founder, Pensole Lewis College of Business & Design
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Keenan Covington: Chair of the Next-Gen Board of Advisors, First Independence Bank & Digital Content Marketing Officer, Kellogg Foundation
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Brinn Phillips: Brand Strategist and Director of Inclusion, McCann
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A’naya Jones: FATE Class of 2021 Alumni
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David Merritt: Co-Founder, Merit
For the first time in FATE History, our winning team was both this year’s “People’s Choice Award” (awarded by audience members) winner AND the team selected by our panel of judges! This year’s BIG WINNER was….
The Starting 5 who presented their
“Together We Stand, Connected We Stay” campaign!
You can learn more about all five campaigns for the 2025 Grade 9 Capstone Project here.
Our 10th graders designed a Merit product collection and attendees of the Student Showcase had the opportunity to walk around each team’s trade show booth display and pre-order the product they liked the most! With combined pre-sales from the Student Showcase and online at www.meritgoodness.com, the team with the most pre-sales is crowned the winner and their collection will be produced in full and sold on Merit’s website Fall 2025! Additionally, for the first time, 3 pre-decided Secret Shoppers were in the crowd to crown their own winning team based on customer service skills. This year’s teams included:
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Above All Matter - “Culture Ready” Collection (Graphic Designer: Scott Everett)
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New Horizons - “New Opportunities” Collection (Graphic Designer: Kristle Marshall)
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No Stress - “Your Future Your Choice” Collection (Graphic Designer: Karl Nilsson)
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YOG - “Dress For Success” Collection (Graphic Designer: Kirah Price)
Pre-sales have officially ended and the winning 10th grade team (who won BOTH the Secret Shopper award and the pre-sale competition) is…
No Stress with their “Your Future Your Choice” Collection!
You can shop the entire “Your Future Your Choice” collection here:
In addition to the winning collection being produced in full and sold on Merit’s website, we have selected the top 5 selling products from the other collections that will be available as well. Our top 5 products this year included:
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YOG: Dress For Success
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Above All Matter: Culture Ready
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New Horizons: New Opportunities
You can learn more about all four product collections for the 2025 Grade 10 Capstone Project here.
It was an incredible night dedicated to celebrating the hard work and talent of our students and we couldn’t be more proud of them! Thank you to everyone who came out to the Student Showcase to support our students!
We want to give a special thank you to some very important folks who made these projects possible:
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Creative Circle & the Creative Team (Jeff Martin, Shelby Dubin, Adam Luger, Stephen Timblin)
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Graphic Designers - Scott Everett, Kristle Marshall, Karl Nilsson, and Kirah Price
As well as a big thank you to our event sponsors:
And of course our FATE Mentors & the Give Merit Board, our panel of judges, and all of our incredible volunteers for the day!
Photography: Shelby Dubin
Videography By: Alex Buksdorf
