Revere High School (RHS) students with a varying set of abilities are running a snack cart for staff and teachers as part of curriculum and education.
Melody McDonald, one of RHS’s interventional specialists, started the snack cart after coming to Revere from being at Anthony Wayne High School that already had a snack cart before she left. The snack cart teaches the students working it many different skills.
“I am working with students on adding totals up, making the change and just even recognizing certain items like how to stock items,” McDonald said.
The snack cart allows students to converse with staff, take orders, calculate totals and make the change needed to give back to staff members as they go through the hallways on Friday mornings. These skills also transfer into potential jobs after school.
Principal Doug Faris explained that staff order snacks and said that “staff gets a link in their email the Friday before a full [five-day school] week for orders that they prepare during the week. [the class] can only [prepare snacks] if they have a full [five-day] week.”
When preparing for the following Friday, students spread out the orders they prepare across multiple days to make room for their normal studies.
The students “all go grocery shopping, and they go to Acme and Sam’s Club, and they purchase everything. They then store the supplies in the room next to the classrooms,” McDonald said.
Using the earnings from the previous week, the students go to the store to get supplies for the next week. This gives students experience with work that can set them up for the future.
“[The] juniors do it all independently now, but [for] some of the freshmen, it takes longer to do. You see them grow from year-to-year getting better and better with it,” McDonald said.
The students learn how to operate the snack cart by themselves so they can prepare for and go through the routine every Friday.
“The cart comes around only on Fridays where there is a full week [of school], so it has to be a five-day week,” Faris said.
One of RHS’s social studies teachers Jeff Fry said, “I look forward to Fridays, when the snack cart brings snacks, I get to see an awesome program and how these students and their teachers are integrating with the rest of the staff and students.”
Each week students who run the snack cart help around thirty staff members, boosting spirits like Fry’s.
“I make sure to order something every week that I am available to,” Fry said.
Fry tries to purchase an item every week in to support the students as well as a boost towards his day. The snack cart can prepare students for jobs.
The snack cart “gives students a real work experience, [and] they could, after graduation, go work at Acme or Sam’s Club,” McDonald said.
The snack cart is something that Revere is planning on doing for many years to come as a way to support the students and staff within the RHS building.
