SUBMITTED PHOTO — The Marshalltown High School Student Senate presented the idea for the Bobcat Boutique during the Marshalltown Community School Board meeting on Monday. The boutique will provide clothes, free of charge, for formal events and job interviews to students who cannot afford to purchase such items.

Marshalltown High School students will have two new ventures to engage in soon — the Bobcat Boutique and the Bobcat Cafe.

The boutique is an effort of the MHS Student Senate and Spanish teacher Charlotte Santana.

During the Monday meeting, Student Senator Zoe Weidenaar told the school board the boutique is a new venture which will provide free professional and formal clothing to students who cannot afford to purchase such items. The idea came to fellow Senator Kenya Reyes when she discovered some students did not have the means to purchase certain clothes.

Weidenaar said they see a lot of need for resources, particularly for business and formal attire – dresses, pants, shirts, shoes and accessories. At this year’s Homecoming dance, she said numerous students could not participate because they could not afford the formal attire.

“What we want to do is cover some of that need,” Weidenaar said. “We also want to cover the need for business attire for students pursuing job interviews because that is another big thing — being able to present yourself well at a job interview. We want to give students some of the opportunity to go and not only participate in school spirit things, but also have the presentable attire for job interviews.”

Senator Alina Santana said the attire would be lent to the students. How long the students would keep the clothes depends on the event they are checked out for.

Senator Osmar Castro Martinez said they have $2,500 to start the boutique. To help with the operations, they will use volunteer cataloguers, appointment managers and personal shoppers. Martinez said the shoppers will get a better idea of what students need by asking questions such as the type and color of clothing required. The appointment managers will help schedule times for students to look through the boutique.

“They will be managing appointments through a QR code,” he said.

The QR codes will be placed on posters around the school. Upon scanning, a student can sign up for an appointment, and can specify what items they need.

Martinez said the long-term goal is for the boutique to eventually be sustainable.

“As we enter this world of fast fashion, we buy something off of Shein or Temu and it rips and it doesn’t last long,” he said. “With this, we will maintain these outfits for longer use and many uses. We also want to meet the continuous needs of students. We want to have a clothing spectrum available to all students.”

To help encourage clothing donations, Martinez said they will promote the boutique on social media and will directly contact local businesses to see if they would be willing to donate. Gonzalez is hopeful students will donate their old prom dresses. Donations can be delivered to the main office of the high school.

To help ensure the clothes last a while, they plan to work with the high school fashion department so those students can learn how to temporarily hem clothing. There is also a department in MHS with washers and dryers which can clean the clothing items after usage. The Student Senate hopes to eventually extend the boutique to Miller Middle School students.

Responding to a question from Superintendent Theron Schutte, Weidenaar said they would like to use some of the empty space in the theater department, and have designated days for students to pick out their items.

Board member Maria Morales, who works at Iowa Workforce Development, said she could help the students utilizing the Bobcat Boutique by giving them mock job interviews.

The boutique will be supported by the Arts+Culture Alliance.

“This is tied to the Arts and Culture Master Plan for the city of Marshalltown,” Executive Director Amber Danielson said. “One of the five themes is elevating youth, which spurred the Embrace the Lead campaign. This really was a way to activate elevating youth, which [asks] how can we bring youth to the table, bring them into leadership circles and amplify their voices and ideas.”

Bobcat Cafe

MHS Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) teacher Jules McGrew told the board about the plans for the Bobcat Cafe, which will be located inside the downtown B.A. Niblock Orpheum Welcome Center. It will start on Feb. 3.

“The Bobcat Cafe is more than a learning experience,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to bring our classroom skills to life when serving the Marshalltown community. Students will learn teamwork and management and problem solving skills, preparing them for a career in culinary and hospitality fields.”

Students have learned about food safety protocols necessary for the cafe and earned ServSafe Certification. McGrew said students will handle customer service, barista tasks and day-to-day operations during the morning hours. In the afternoon, another group of students will remain in the MHS FCS area to make the baked goods for the cafe.

“In the afternoon, we can’t skip that part of the production, making the baked goods in our classroom,” she said.

She said she and the students are excited for the cafe to begin, and for the three culinary and event opportunities they have already completed.

“They’ve done recipe development, which has been really fun for them to try out new recipes and get them out to the school,” she said.

The three catering gigs included a Rogers Elementary resource fair in October, a Cultural Committee meeting in November and a Marshalltown Chamber event at Pinnacle Bank this month.

“They have such pride in doing that,” McGrew said. “Having the community support us in that way makes us really confident that we will have a lot of support with the cafe, as well.”

MHS Principal Justin Boliver said a lot of work has been done to get the cafe up and running, especially by district administration.

“We didn’t just show up this year and say, ‘Hey. We’re doing this thing,'” he told board members. ” . . . I’m excited for our district and our kids.”

The hours of the Bobcat Cafe will be 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.