Haddonfield has not had a DECA team in many years. This year, a new finance and economics teacher, Mrs. Friedman, who came from Cherry Hill High School East, reinstated DECA in Haddonfield. It has been a tremendous success. DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) is a club at Haddonfield Memorial High School for students interested in business. DECA prepares students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management. 

Haddonfield went to this event with about 35 students, compared to the other schools, which were about a tenth of Cherry Hill East and Cherry Hill West, as well as Eastern High School. Each of these schools brought over 250 students, which in terms of our high school is a little bit bigger than the average entire grade level size at our school. DECA is broken down into two events, a test that attendees took 2 weeks before attending the competition and the actual local competition held in a hotel. 

The event was broken down into events that spanned for about 30-40 minutes, and each event was either solo or competed with a partner.  Each team was put into a scenario based on the category entered: entrepreneurial, business, sports, and entertainment marketing. From here teams were given 30 minutes to prepare and then to present a pitch to a judge, explaining to them the pitch and ideas of the team. HMHS did very well in the competition for our first time there in over 20 years. We had about 30% of our team make it to states, which are in Atlantic City in a few weeks. In comparison to the big high schools that were there like Cherry Hill East and Eastern, we had almost the same percentage of people going to states – which in our first year is pretty remarkable, considering that most of the kids that were there had over 2 years of DECA experience. I went to DECA and I had a great time, meeting people from other schools, competing against people from our school, and coming in first place were just a handful of things that I was able to experience with DECA. I would highly consider joining DECA next year if you did not join this year. 

We are very proud of these students and our business teacher/club advisor Rachel Friedman in the inaugural year of DECA club at HMHS.

Robert DeNinno (10) – STATES QUALIFIER

Eliza Gordon (12) – STATES QUALIFIER, FIRST PLACE in her event

Luke Hart (11) – STATES QUALIFIER

Dash Lin (12) – STATES QUALIFIER, SECOND PLACE in his event

Francesca O’Neil (9) – STATES QUALIFIER

Romy Palmateer (11) – STATES QUALIFIER

Margo Rhoades (12) – STATES QUALIFIER

Audrey Walker (11) – STATES QUALIFIER, SECOND PLACE in her event