Swag, Snacks, and Sips: The School Store

It’s 9:20am on a Monday morning. You just got out of your first period class and a thought comes to your mind, “I’m hungry.” At the same time, you remember that you are planning to go to an upcoming game. However, you don’t have any good Gilman swag to wear. Luckily for you, the Gilman Store provides the perfect solution to this predicament, offering a plethora of good snacks and high-quality merchandise at a reasonable price.

Originally opened in the early 1980’s under the name “The Country Store,” the school store has both clothed and fed students for generations. Ever since then, it has been moved to and from a variety of locations, including the cottage (which doesn’t exist anymore), the old gym (where the Gilman Exchange is currently), and finally, below Carey Hall, where the innovation lab currently is. The school store moved to its present location in Carey Hall right before the start of COVID. Its current location allows for far better accessibility for students and parents. 

The widespread admiration and success of the school store can be attributed to its hardworking and genial staff, Ashley Webber, Amy Lizana, and Christina Emde. Ms. Webber had worked for the Gilman Book Store in the 90s, leaving in 1999 for St. Paul’s, but she returned in 2021 to manage the store full-time. Ms. Emde joined the school store at the same time as Ms. Webber in July of 2021. Finally, Ms. Lizana came from Roland Park to join the school store in 2022 and works for the store part-time.

The process of running the store is no easy task as it requires constant logistics, communication, and planning. During the school day, food and drinks must be continuously replenished, especially after customer surges, which typically occur at the end of first and second period, during lunch, and at the end of the middle school’s day. Ms. Webber and Ms. Lizana said the most common snacks bought were, unsurprisingly, Chex-Mix, Goldfish, Cheez-Its, Uncrustables, and Mentos. The most common drink items are the Gatorades and the Arizona Ice Teas, although Ms. Lizana stated that the Vitamin Water is an underrated item and thus perhaps students should give it a try next time they find themselves in the store. 

The other, and even more important, function of the school store is to serve and provide a convenient place for the school to distribute merchandise to parents, alumni, and students alike. In this discipline, the school store truly excels far above many other local school’s merchandise, providing a wide range of both good looking and comfortable swag both at the school store and online. Naturally this is no accident and is all thanks to the hard work of Ms. Webber, who is responsible for the entire process. In order to accomplish this task, she works with individual vendors online, creating custom clothing apparel with Gilman insignia, and then works throughout the year to make sure that all clothing items are stocked. Ms. Webber commented, “We meet with the vendors, and they show us what they have… and sometimes I pick their brains too: what's popular in the colleges? In high schools? What trends do they see?” By asking these questions, Ms. Webber is able to get a much better picture of what customers want and this allows her to pick products that may not personally appeal to her, but which many of the customers will prefer. She also tries to order from a wide variety of vendors, saying, “We also like to keep in mind costs… we have Nike and Under Armour, and Johnnie O… but we are always looking for good quality.” 

Recently, the school store has continued to innovate by the introduction of a new POS lightspeed system. This system allows the school store to have a second mobile register within and outside of the store, now enabling them to create pop ups stands at big sports games, like the recent McDonough football game. Within the store, this new system allows them to handle higher traffic better as they can process twice as many customers at a time.

Between providing us with a great selection of both snacks, drinks, and high quality Gilman apparel, we ought to be very thankful for the hard work of those at the school store for all that they do. So, that being said, thank you Ms. Webber, Ms. Lizana, and Ms. Emde!