“Sweet Savings” places third, product team top six at MSBA conference

For the first time, Gloucester High’s product team was named one of the top six teams at the Massachusetts School Bank Association banking conference on April 8th. GHS’s marketing team, Sweet Savings, placed third overall, and the day was an overall success for the school’s business department.

The MSBA banking conference allows any Massachusetts high school student run banks to participate.

Seniors Elizabeth Ciaramitaro, Patrick Goss, Allison Doody, and Jacob Emerson are members of Sweet Savings. The team had one hour to put together a marketing campaign that could be used to teach elementary students about banking. They created a monopoly style board game which they then had to present to a board of judges.

“When they called our category, we were called up for third place,” said Ciaramitaro. “All four of us were really surprised, we didn’t expect to place.”

In the product development category, Gloucester made it farther than ever before.

“Our team placed in the top six out of eighteen schools,” said banking teacher Robin Pine. “This was a huge accomplishment for us.”

The product development team included Vincenzo Diminio, Sarah Orlando, Alexandra Muise, Kaitlin Marques, and Alicia Gibney. They were given three months to create a product or a service that could be potentially sold to banks.

The team created an app called Phone Loan, which was a way for people to take out loans electronically on a secure site. The students then created a TV commercial to advertise their product.

“The team was incredibly creative,” said Pine. “And they produced an amazing product.”

After the eighteen teams present, six are called back. Although Gloucester did not place in the competition, they were called back.