Enterprising Students Score Big With Les Schwab Parking Lot

Location, location, location is the formula for success in real estate, and in Denver, it’s paying off for North High School students. The hard-working group has been raising money for their school by parking cars for Denver Broncos fans in the Federal Boulevard Les Schwab parking lot since 2012.

North High School is within walking distance of Mile High Stadium, where the Broncos play. Even better, the Les Schwab Tire Center on Federal Boulevard is just a block away from the stadium.

Store Manager Ed Ferrell saw proximity and he saw an opportunity. When he opened the store in 2012, he offered the parking lot to the students to sell parking spaces to fans attending Broncos games. The proceeds go toward North High School activities: drama, band, choir and more than 20 boys and girls sports teams. Altogether, the students’ parking lot fundraisers have earned approximately $35,000 per year for four years.

The students staff the parking lot in two shifts: one parks the cars and a second monitors the lot during the game. The lot sees plenty of use during the preseason and regular season home games every year, and sometimes more often than that. In 2015, the students reaped the benefits of two extra games of fundraising as the Broncos hosted playoff games. The Broncos won the Super Bowl championship, defeating the Carolina Panthers 24-10.

North High students have funded an array of activities. The yearbook committee was able to subsidize the cost of the yearbooks so they were affordable to all students. After the baseball team won the city title for the first time in 16 years, team members used their funds to play in a summer league and maintain training. The drama group was able to purchase the rights to the popular musical, “Grease,” which then sold out — an unprecedented event — and they earned back the money they’d invested.

“They’re very community oriented,” said North High School Assistant Principal and Athletic Director Kevin Bendjy of his friends at the Federal Boulevard Les Schwab. “Since we began fundraising there, we’ve been able to provide new uniforms and equipment for nearly all of our sports teams. We were even able to launch our boys and girls lacrosse teams, which each have more than 30 student-athletes participating.”

The store’s generosity led to an unexpected new role for Ferrell, who was named Grand Marshal of the North High homecoming parade. The school is hoping to fund a scoreboard with future earnings, and when it’s up, we’ll be in the stands cheering on the team.

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