With little income and frequent spending on energy drinks and snacks, affording to be a high schooler can be tricky. We often find ways to make a quick buck, whether this be through making a small wager or completing a strange dare.
No matter what, five dollars always seems worth drinking the concoction of school milk and fruit chunks made in the center of the lunch table. Desperate times call for desperate measures! However, many students look for other ways to make money outside of their typical job.
Small businesses and side hustles can flourish, as social media allows students to reach out to people across the community about the services they offer. Transactions of everything from goods to services can be completed, and students can easily make money off their creative talents.
Xin Xin is one of the many students at Wilsonville who has been able to build his own brand within Wilsonville High School. Beginning as an online sensation, Xin Xin created his own YouTube series, as well as several Instagram accounts.
From this, demand for personal merchandise boomed and Xin Xin sold his first iconic t-shirt, proudly reading “Stop Gang Violence,” (inspired by Lincoln Mason), to Jacob Boss during their freshman year. The beginning of a quintessential Wilsonville clothing item, loved by students in all grades.
The shirt design itself is where you begin to see the personality of Xin Xin truly shine. Often depicted on the front is the house of the buyer, with bright colors, redesigned in the art style of the maker himself.
Awareness of many societal problems is also brought as you can pick from a variety of designs. Shown online and in his paper packets, the cultural issues range from teen violence to “stopping the ism.” Another branch of design touches on hopeful and encouraging phrases relating to sports and school.
Xin Xin mentions this, stating, “Stop gang violence and stop unsafe violence are some of my favorite causes, but between the two I really have no preference. They’re both important to me.”
Another flourishing small business is one run by sophomore Avery Novitski. Starting near the end of her freshman year, Novitsky began to sell slimes to her classmates. As social media relit the nostalgic infatuation with slime, Novitsky found her consumer demographic.
The slime craze began, and her passion for slime-making made her job easy. “I’ve always wanted a way to make money, and slime is something fun for me, and makes other people happy too. So naturally I thought it would be a perfect source of income for me!” Novitski explained.
A difficult factor that these hustlers face is the ability to sell their goods during school hours. It is easy to make exchanges within the confines of the school; however, winter, spring, and summer break make business near impossible.
“With school ending I had to shut down my selling temporarily, but now that we are back for the year I’m planning on bringing it back,” Novitski added. So, students can look forward to the rekindling of slime presence within Wilsonville.
Some people, however, began their work outside of school and then expanded their connections throughout the year. Senior Kiah Fee mentions how she began, stating, “I started doing nails for my friends during the summer, and by the school year I had more people asking for help with them.”
Fee began similarly to Novitski, as she found an aptitude for doing her nails throughout quarantine before attempting to work on others. “My first few sets didn’t turn out that great, but they got better as I kept practicing and now it is something I love to do regularly!”
Suddenly, students can participate in academics, athletics, clubs, socializing, and money-making all within our Wilsonville High School. This inspires creativity, ownership, organization, and independence within our community, which is an exciting learning experience for us all.