Divine Donuts will soon have a new website, and it is all thanks to students at St. Aloysius High School.

The Vicksburg donut shop partnered with students at St. Al to design and build its new website. Students started the process in October and the website will go live in the near future after months of work.

The students unveiled their work for the owners of Divine Donuts last week and are making a few tweaks before officially making it live.

The new site will tell the history of Divine Donuts, list the locations of the stores throughout Vicksburg and will soon offer the customers the ability to make orders online.

“I was amazed at how great it looks. That opening screen is just beautiful. I think they did a really great job. I am real happy with it,” Divine Donuts owner Becky Yelverton said. “I thought it would be a great thing for them to work with us and us to be able to get a website. It wasn’t something we were able to get into with starting Divine Donuts. I was thinking the kids would get involved and get excited and we would have lifetime customers. It was a win-win for everybody.”

The students in the web design class started the year by learning how to code and were able to use that experience to build the site. Sophomore Caden Pickle tackled one of the most difficult tasks of the project using HTML coding and Java Scripts to create a map of the shops with custom pins featuring the Divine Donuts logo.

“It was difficult at times, but it was fun overall. It was a really good teamwork exercise. I really enjoyed this opportunity because coding is something I want to do in the future,” Pickle said.

Web design teacher Christin Matthews said the ability to design the website for the company gave the students real world experience because they had to make sure the site was fully functional and that it met the needs of the business that had trusted them.

“I was excited about the opportunity and a little nervous too because we are about to build this site for a local company. I am very thankful for the opportunity to help a Vicksburg business,” Matthews said. “They are doing something that is actually making a difference for our community. The work they are putting into this is creating something that people can really use.”

The students still have some work to do before making the site live, including making the online store fully functional and making a few changes the owners requested. When they are done, customers will be able to access a full menu for the donut shop and order their donuts and coffee online.

“All the hard work we put into this website, it is great to see it come to an end,” web design student Kayla Ahner said. “Designing a website and all that is mind-blowing to see it actually published and that it is going to be used.”