With the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in full effect, school lunch programs everywhere have reworked their menus to meet nutrition regulations. School sponsored athletics and activities, which use food sales for fundraising purposes, followed suit as well, forcing an across-the-board revamp of activities fundraising at West.

For DECA’s ever-popular cookie store (which brings in thousands of dollars a year), the news meant plans to open the operation at the beginning of the year were cancelled. The small, wooden vending kiosk, stashed near the auditorium’s backstage exit, then stood vacant, devoid of the cookies, muffins, and beef jerky sold in previous years.

This meant a considerable hit for DECA, which uses cookie sales to help students finance trips to nationals–this year, held in Orlando, Fla.

“Some people can’t afford the trip to nationals because it’s at least $1500,” Vice President of Business Operations Jaslyn Schweiss said.

That’s when DECA students–left with a considerable gap in their fundraising portfolio–found a solution.

“We were sweating it a little bit, trying to think of other, new revenue sources that we could entertain, when all of a sudden, Otis Spunkmeyer decided to come out with a new, healthier cookie,” DECA President Trent Hoppe said.

The new, healthier cookies pass USDA nutrition guidelines, and on Sept. 18 the cookie store reopened after a more than five-week hiatus. Normally open first through fourth hours, the store sold through lunch on reopening day, selling out shortly into the first hour lunch rush.

DECA can credit their revived cookie store to Otis Spunkmeyer’s new, healthier line of cookies, Delicious Essentials. Each cookie is made of 51% or more whole grains, contains no more than 10% of calories from saturated fat, has 0g trans fat and no high-fructose corn syrup.

Although these new cookies cost DECA more, prices for customers remain unchanged; three cookies sell for $1.25, two for $1 (with the exception of double chocolate, which sell $1.25 for two and $1.50 for three, due to their larger size).

With a new recipe geared towards passing nutrition standards, several students have noticed a change in flavor, due in part to the high concentration of whole grains. Still, for Schweiss, some cookies are better than no cookies.

“I know it’s different than the old cookies, but for what we’re given and the nutritional requirements I think they taste pretty good,” Schweiss said.