PEABODY -- It's going to be hard for Shelley Schmeck to say goodbye this May.

Schmeck is the advisor of the DECA Club at Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody. The club was founded during the 2021-22 school year, and the last of its founding members will graduate in the spring.

"It's been one of the best experiences of my life," Schmeck said at the DECA meeting on April 11. "I actually might get emotional to you just talking about it."

DECA is a global club for high schoolers and college students interested in becoming entrepreneurs. It offers competitions and projects in which students roleplay as businesspeople and marketers, getting a hands-on experience of what it's like to be in those fields. Bishop Fenwick offers an Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Leadership class, which is open to DECA members. When The Pilot visited the school, students in the class were tasked with designing their own amusement park and pitching it to investors in a "Shark Tank"-themed presentation.

"It's been wonderful to see them grow," Schmeck said.

Many of her students started out timid and lacking the confidence to speak to adults they didn't already know.

"What I see after just one year of these competitions is these kids can stand up in front of anybody and talk to anybody about whatever idea may come," she said. "And I think that helps them down the road, certainly in terms of interviewing skills, whether it be for schools or jobs."

"It will give them a competitive advantage in the future that students who didn't take the risk to do these types of things won't have," she added.

Over 400 students in grades nine through 12 attend Bishop Fenwick. Seventy-two of those students are in DECA. Four of them were named state champions at the Massachusetts DECA State Career Development Conference in Boston earlier this year and will be attending the International Career Development Conference in Orlando this April.

Every DECA competition Bishop Fenwick takes part in starts with group prayer. They sometimes FaceTime with their priests for blessings during the competition.

"I would say that we are becoming the best of ourselves, and these students work together as a group, and their Catholic identity has brought them together," DECA Advisor Erin Good said.

"There's nothing like seeing them come together and bow their heads and pray together in the midst of hundreds of people milling around getting ready for their competitions," Schmeck said.

State Champion Callie Reed, a junior, is "a really competitive person" and joined DECA because she wanted a club that combined academics, business, and the competition she gets from playing sports. When she entered high school, she had no idea what she wanted for a career. Through DECA, she discovered her passion for business and engineering.

"Not only are you competing, but you're building this community up all around you, and the more competitions you go to, the more people you'll meet," she said. "It's a lot about networking as well."

Team-building activities at DECA competitions include trading pins and hats.

"It's a good way to learn how a market works, and how to introduce yourself to people and make business deals," Reed said.

State Champion Taylar Carafa, a senior, joined DECA because her older sister was in the club.

"It's helped me figure out exactly what I want to do in college," she said, "and it has helped me tremendously with my public speaking skills."

She wants to be a marketing manager or financial advisor. Being vice president of finance for Bishop Fenwick's DECA club has taught her about finance and fundraising.

"I feel like it really puts forth my logical and creative mind, and that's really put forth the path that I want to go for," she said.

State Champion Celia Lewis, a senior, was looking for something to do after school besides art and sports.

"I decided to join DECA because it seemed like a fun way to learn public speaking skills and network with other professionals and maybe see what I wanted to do with my life in the future," she said.

She's always wanted to work in sports but wasn't sure how she would get there. As CEO of her school's DECA Club, she realized that she was interested in management, too. She'd like to be a vice president of business operations someday, and DECA has allowed her to explore that career.

"It showed me the importance of networking and how to run an organization and kind of take part in all these different aspects that you wouldn't have thought that a VP of business ops would need to participate in," she said. "But DECA has really shown me that everything's connected in business, and you can get into any avenue you want."

Despite its focus on entrepreneurship, DECA is about more than just making money.

"Half the organization is also about giving back to communities," Schmeck said, "so they learn not only how they're going to, as leaders, make a living, but they also learn the value of giving back to their communities and to people, those who are in need. And that reinforces all of the Catholic values."