The De Soto High School Finance and Marketing class is holding a turkey raffle to raise money for the De Soto Food Pantry this November.

“I found out that the De Soto Food Pantry would be a great place to donate some money, so I came up with the idea to put together a raffle. Teachers and students put in a dollar and have the chance to win a turkey,” said DHS Finance and Marketing teacher Tom Byers.

The turkey that is being raffled off was donated from Steve’s Meat Market.

This time of year is optimal for donating to the food pantry, according to Byers.

“The holiday season is such an important time of the year for [the food pantry] to be stocked,” Byers said.

The class is not only giving to a great cause, but learning from the experience.

“I think there’s a lot that students can learn from this experience,” Byers said. “Obviously the marketing side of things comes into play, we’ve had students make Twitter announcements and flyers, as well as interacting with other students during lunch and seminar when they’re trying to get people to put a dollar in the raffle.”

According to senior Hunter Corneliusen, it’s not the promotion of their product that is the hardest part of this project.

“It’s actually a lot harder than you would think to just sell these things,” Corneliusen said. “You get turned down a lot.”

The students in the class overcome these difficult tasks though, and enrollment in the Finance and Marketing course has been growing.

“We started off a few years ago with about three students in the class. Two years ago we went to between five and eight students, and this year we have 20. We are starting to see more and more kids get involved,” Byers said.

The growing class has ambitious goals for the future.

“The kids aren’t necessarily selling a product as of now because they’re trying to raise money for a cause, but hopefully we are moving towards potentially, in the future, opening up a school store kind of concept. All the little activities we’re doing along the way are giving them a basic understanding of marketing strategies and concepts,” Byers said.

The turkey raffle ends Friday, Nov. 20. Make sure to buy a $1 ticket for a chance to win a twenty pound turkey donated by Steve’s Meat Market.