BROOKFIELD TOWNSHIP, Ohio - Belly Buster Sub Shop has been in Brookfield for 47 years, but a few months ago, Matthew Chu took over the business as its new owner.

"Things have been going great," Chu said. "We have a great product and a great community."

Chu's girlfriend, Josy Kirila, is a Brookfield graduate and was recently introduced to the high school's new Maker Space, which was finished in 2020. Kirila was so impressed, she told Chu about it and Belly Buster decided to hire the school and Maker Space students to create merchandising and marketing materials for the sub shop.

"They have the infrastructure available that makes both merchandising and marketing so much more accessible to small business owners like myself," Chu said. "So being able to have that and being able to print off so many stickers, being able to print off so many different forms of marketing makes my life as a small business owner, much easier."

The Maker Space is an area with several machines like 3D Printers and laser cutters, which can make stuff out of wood, cardboard and other materials. There's also a CNC machine, a vinyl printer, heat press and embroidery machine among others.

"We can do almost anything you can think of," James Haywood, a Maker Space Teacher said. "We can make stickers, make banners, we can carve and etch wood, glass. We have a CNC machine right here where we can literally make signs, we can do anything that the imagination can come up with, we probably have a machine here that would help you bring it to fruition."

The school district received a $60,000 grant from the Arconic Foundation to fund the Maker Space and Declan Construction and other businesses have donated materials for the lab.

"I don't know of another school this size that has anything like it," Haywood said. "I don't know of schools bigger than us that have anything like it."

The students are able to create and design their own products on a computer and then have them printed, etched or cut-out on different materials.

"I absolutely love this space," Isabella Foust, a Brookfield Junior said. "I'm really excited to get to be working here. There is just a lot you can do and it's really cool to be able to have an idea and like bring it to life and you can do it in every possible way and I think that's really cool."

"You can not walk in here and not have a little bit sense of awe, you know, and I know that sounds egotistical but it's true you walk in here and you see everything on these walls and everything students have done and you can't help but go wow," Haywood said.

Belly Buster Sub Shop is having the Maker Space make them a new banner, wooden logo signs, menu signs and stickers for the sub bags.

It's next generation learning and real world experience for the students.

"It takes what we do in school and then it takes it out and it's something that is actually being used and so it's like a real world implication beyond like, oh this is for an A-grade, you know, something like that, I think that is really cool," Foust said.

At the same time, it's giving Belly Buster Sub Shop the opportunity to grow even more.

"The symbiotic nature between both a small business and school is what creates a thriving community and having the community help me with all this, it truly warms my heart," Chu said.

Buckeye Education has made Brookfield's Maker Space a model school for other facilities who are interested in setting up a Maker Space. Haywood says their space is only going to get bigger.

"We just got another grant, it's about three quarters of a million dollars," Haywood said. "Our Superintendent is looking into getting some other equipment that's gonna make some of this stuff up in here look kind of like kid toys, well that is what I hope anyway, haha."