The FATE annual Student Showcase was finally back after a 2-year pandemic hiatus, and we were THRILLED.
Our 9th and 10th graders have been hard at work preparing for this event for the past few months!
- Four teams of 9th graders pitched marketing/advertising campaigns for Merit and a winner was declared on the spot.
- Three 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 21st!
Our 9th graders delivered stellar presentations on 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:
- Dexter Sullivan, Director of DEI & Allyship at Lambert
- Michael Haener, Co-Founder at Midwest Common
- Tyrel Kirkham, VP Brand & Marketing Strategy at Detroit Pistons
- Mariam Kante, 12th Grade FATE Student
- Olivia Vinckier, FATE Mentor
After much deliberation, this year’s “People’s Choice Award” (awarded by audience members) was given to Winning Bolts and the team who took home the BIG WIN was Proyecto Los Campeones with their “A Brand That Grows With You” campaign! You can learn all about the 2022 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 will win the competition and have their collection produced in full and sold on Merit’s website Fall 2022! We will also be selecting the top 5 selling products outside of the winning collection to be produced as well. The competition ends on June 21st so get shopping!!
- Culture Creators - Growth Collection
- Prodigy - Community Collection
- Cheat Code - Your Future is the Bigger Picture Collection
You can learn all about the 2022 Grade 10 Capstone project here.
We had such a lovely night celebrating the amazingness of our kids and it was a great reminder of how special this event truly is. Thank you to everyone who came out and cheered them on and a special thank you to our event sponsor - Lambert - and the following capstone project partners:
- Creative Circle & Our Creative Team (Allison Farrand, Adam Luger, Jeff Martin, Paige Merritt, Stephen Timblin)
- Woodward Original (Stevie Ansara)
- Creative Solutions Group
- Graphic Designer - Skylar Holt
- And of course our FATE Mentors, the Give Merit Board, and all of our volunteers for the day!
Photography By: Allison Farrand
