A vending machine that only holds a gold skirt wrapped in plastic and a phone charger sits idle in a dark corner. Before the pandemic, it was filled with gold spirit wear and beads that students could buy for gold-outs or spirit days, but since then, the box has collected dust.
“We picked the vending machine up as our management capstone project,” Mia Pierini, co-manager of the project, said. “Every group from Management, which is the final business class, gets a project and then they can choose to take it to DECA State. So we decided to take the Spirit Box as our project.”
The Spirit Box has been just a decoration, sitting next to the Coyote Cave with small items that people could only observe. No students currently at Monarch, including seniors, have ever seen the Spirit Box in action.
“None of us have had the opportunity to know what it does, because none of us were at Monarch when it was in operation,” Pierini said. “We were curious about what it looks like. Students have only ever seen the box in passing, but when a sign appeared about a reopening, students were excited.
“I saw it freshman year and I’m very excited about it, like really, very excited,” Izabella Duckworth ‘25 said. “I think that it would be nice for people to get school spirit gear at school, and I’m most excited about the Red Bull and chargers.”
The Spirit Box was originally supposed to reopen on December 1st, just after Thanksgiving break. However, technological issues struck close to the opening date.
“The screen stopped working sometimes and we decided that at this point in time, it’s too unreliable to open until it gets fixed completely,” Pierini said. Understanding how disappointing this news would be to those excited to see the Spirit Box in action, the Spirit Box team decided to hold off until everything is perfect and functional so that customers and students will get the best Spirit Box experience possible.
Now, the group plans to open the machine shortly after winter break.
“The whole student body goes to Party City in Westminster to get stuff for football games,” Pierini said. “So why not get stuff right across from the school cafeteria?”