Everyone knows about the Taste of Monarch, but do they all know about how much time and effort goes into putting the event together? This isn’t an event that is planned over night. It took time and focus to plan this huge event at Monarch. The planning for this massive event began in the spring of 2014.

“[DECA has] to contact all the vendors and they have to come up with raffle prizes for the silent auction. They have put a lot of work into it,” said senior Marlo Vernon.

Contacting the vendors required precision. This year there were 13 vendors at the event. Some of the vendors were Qdoba, Freddy’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Marco’s pizza.

“We put in about five hours a week outside of school to put this event on. We go in and contact the vendors, but there has been a lot of management change this year, making it more difficult to find vendors,” said senior Kyle Sholtz.

Although there are no specific qualifications to being a vendor, known businesses are preferred so that more people will come.

“ We try to find local businesses that kids and families around town enjoy so that the companies can advertise and get their product out there,” said junior Sean Connolly.

There has been a lot of effort and time put into this event by everyone in DECA. Everyone in DECA must participate in some way, whether it is selling tickets or helping getting the word out about the event.

“We have to advertise and put up flyers for the event, we even contacted the K-8 and asked them to put it in their weekly newsletter,” said senior Jason Jacobs.

After months of thoughtful planning, Taste of Monarch was put on. The proceeds go to DECA itself to help pay for students’ costs when they have competitions and some of the money also goes to charity. Motivation and time helped create this event for the third year running.