Inflating Friendships: Eight seniors bond and learn through working together at Jubilee Balloon Co.

A 680-foot Olympic-themed garland of 9,000 red, green, blue, black and yellow balloons met its end as scissors and balloon strikers aggressively popped the clusters and star-shapes.

Seniors Grace Demetriou, Lola Condon, Parker Paben, Michael Winter, Quinn McCarthy, Nathan Daniels and Lucy Wolf, all Jubilee Balloon Co. employees, were taking down a balloon installation at the Overland Park Convention Center after the 100-year anniversary of Balls Food Stores.

They’ve been friends since the end of their freshman year, and they make up eight out of the 25-person staff.

Jubilee Balloon Co. was started in 2020 by East moms Rachel Condon, Liz Beedle and Emily Penke, as a pop-up shop in Corinth that sells balloon bouquets, sculptures and mini garlands. However, Rachel is now the sole owner of the four-room store located in Mission, Kansas with enough space to store over 500 feet of balloon garlands.

The business creates balloon variations for events ranging from T-Rex-themed birthday parties to concerts such as Olivia Rodrigo’s “Guts World Tour” at the T-Mobile Center.

The seniors work three to four-hour shifts, assembling balloon structures together or occasionally driving the new, light pink company van to installations and takedowns.

When making balloon garlands, the seniors plan out who will do each task — some blow up balloons while others string them together — making sure the colors and sizing are correct for each garland.

“[The seniors] work really well together and divide and conquer,” Rachel said. “They know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.”

Lola’s first shift was helping her mom with Halloween-themed balloons in eighth grade, and she’s worked there ever since.

The summer before their junior year, Grace, Parker and Lucy started working at Jubilee Balloon Co. in an attempt to find flexible jobs that cooperated with their busy dance schedules. Since they’re all on the East dance team, Rachel understands that adjustable hours are crucial to help the students navigate their evening dance practices and competitions.

“Having [Rachel] as a boss is really helpful because she lets us schedule our availability, and she’s really nice about it,” Parker said.

The girls thought it’d be fun for more of their friends to work at Jubilee Balloon Co., so a year later, they convinced Michael, Quinn, Nathan and their most recent addition to the team, JJ Paben, to join. Now, eight of their ten-person friend group are a part of the business.

During an average shift, three to eight of the seniors blow up balloons in the “building room.”

“[I] try to schedule them all at the same time and give them a project to do together,” Rachel said. “They’re really responsible and stick to what they’re doing. And I think it’s all because we’ve made it fun.”

While blowing up balloons with an automatic balloon pump, sizing them with wooden balloon sizers and tying fishing line, the seniors sing and dance to Lola’s aux, simultaneously debriefing events like Lancer Day and Homecoming while working.

“It’s easy to multitask while you’re blowing up balloons,” Lola said. “You can just chat about everything.”

Occasionally, there are times where chit-chat is limited. They’ll need to tie balloons twice as fast while making garlands or sculptures that need to be installed hours later, or when they use the wrong colored balloons and have to completely start over on a project.

“You’ll blow up a whole thing and [Rachel] comes in to look at it, and she’s like, ‘Oh, this was not supposed to look like this,’” Grace said. “But she doesn’t ever get mad. It’s more funny than bad.”

One night at 10:30 p.m., Parker, Grace, Michael, Quinn, Nathan and Lucy raced over to the KC Current stadium, taking down 30 inflatable silver and teal orbs in the pouring rain.

“It was really funny and there’s so many funny photos of us running around,” Grace said.

As they were sprinting around trying to take the soaking wet decorations down and put them in the van, Quinn cut his hand with scissors when trying to cut a zip tie.

“We were afraid that we were going to get struck by lightning,” Nathan said. “It was very chaotic.”

Although the job can be intense, Grace says that receiving positive feedback from customers is a reminder that her time and effort is noticed.

She often worries that clients won’t like the colors she uses and the designs she makes, but they usually enjoy seeing the final product.

“It’s always so nice when people are like ‘this is so amazing’,” Grace said. “You feel like all your hard work has done something.”

Whether it’s chasing down 10-foot runaway balloon garlands on a Brookside intersection, or balloons popping while the van is being loaded, their shared photo album never fails to make the seniors laugh about the moments they’ve spent working together.

“It’s just fun having a job with so many of your friends that you’ve been friends [with] for so long,” Parker said. “It makes the job feel like you’re not even doing work.”