Business plan, helping hand

COSTA MESA — When Costa Mesa High School students created a drive-in movie theater and an advertising firm last fall, they intended them to be fictional businesses. On Friday, they became very real indeed.

The business students, who spent the year developing fictional firms as a class project, decided to use their knowledge to net real money after a pair of former classmates met with an unexpected tragedy.

Ivan and Ivonne Ruiz, twins who graduated last year, lost their home in February to a fire — and for one night, on Friday, the Image Drive-In and Open Door Productions came alive to raise money for their family.

“This is one of those classes where you can honestly say, yes, you will need to use this in real life,” said teacher Mike Sciacca, who leads the business academy.

Friday’s event allowed the students in the academy’s Virtual Enterprises class to function as genuine businesspeople — possibly a decade sooner than they expected. With the Ruiz family in attendance, the students mounted a screen in the gymnasium and showed the 1978 musical “Grease,” taking donations at the door and selling food inside. Students presented a massive blank check to Ivonne and her parents before the screening, with the amount to be determined after all the cash was counted.

“I’m just speechless,” said Ivonne, 19, who plans to attend Golden West College later this year. “Even though I graduated, they’re still helping us.”

Last year, the academy started a fundraising tradition when it sold food on campus to benefit a classmate who had a kidney transplant. Senior Ariana Douk, the chief executive of Image, hit on the idea of basing this year’s fundraiser on the fictional businesses that students already knew inside and out.

The Friday night screening cost around $1,200, which included $300 to Paramount Pictures for the exhibition rights to “Grease.” Most of the money came from fundraisers the academy had done for its own benefit earlier in the year, while teachers and families contributed additional dollars. Initially, the school planned to show the movie outdoors on the football field but moved it inside after rain soaked the grass.

Ariana, 17, said she didn’t intend Friday’s business venture to be her last.

“I eat, breathe and sleep the business plan,” she said. “I dream of being a businessperson. When I was little, everyone wanted to be an astronaut or a doctor, and I wanted to be the girl with a business suit and a leather briefcase.”