CINCINNATI, Ohio—Many students missed out on big events this year. For students at one Cincinnati school, they were worried they’d miss out on a project they’d been looking forward to their entire time in elementary school.


What You Need To Know


  • Students at Kilgour School always lookk forward to sixth grade for their small business project called the Gelato Project

  • When schools closed for the rest of the school year, their teacher and a local business owner decided they still wanted to make sure the project continues

  • The students successfully completed the project making their new flavor of gelato called Chocorona

Students at Kilgour School in Cincinnati look forward to one project their sixth grade year. It’s called the gelato project. But their teacher and a local business owner wanted to make sure that was the one thing that wasn’t canceled during this pandemic.

What sixth grade student wouldn’t want to help come up with a new flavor of gelato for a school project?

“The kids always look forward to it," Stephanie Bisher the sixth grade teacher at Kilgour said. "It’s the first thing they ask when they come in to sixth grade is when are we going to start the project.”

But when the doors closed at schools across the state Bisher and local business owner Matt Madison knew they couldn’t let that stop them.

“Stephanie called me that day and said okay, we’re not coming back, we got to figure out a way to salvage this thing, what are you up for? I’m like the show must go on!” Madison said.

So the show did go on, just from home. Students still surveyed the school community on what flavor they’d like to see and then went to action on creating and marketing the product.

“These are all things that consumer package product companies do and they’re getting to do this on a real scale," Madison said.

“They get to see from start to finish what it takes for a small business to develop a product and market it and sell it," Bisher said.

Madison then helps make the product at his business Madisono’s Gelato. It’s his seventh year doing the project and he wanted to make sure this class still got the chance.

“All these kids have lost out on so many things because of the closures," Madison said. "Like let’s not let this be one thing that they miss out on too.”

The students then sold pints of their new flavor- Chocorona. Madison and Bisher say they’re proud of the students for sticking through the project and making it happen.

“Everybody was on board, we had everything going and then this happens and it’s not a reason to either quit, give up or slack off," Madison said. "And the project is a taste of real life and this experience is like what happens.”

“These kids were resilient and persevered," Bisher said. "I mean it was amazing how may kids were actually showing up for video conference, turning in work. And I’m just so proud of how hard they’ve worked.”

Their flavor was so popular, that they’re actually doing another round of sales later this summer to help raise money for a playground project.