What’s in a snack machine? At Progressive School, it is something unique. It reflects our commitment to health and well-being, and to you! Even the prices are so reasonable that they are often equal to what you might pay at a store for the item. Going further, the existence of the machine itself is the outgrowth a student’s independent research project on Nutrition. It seems that the vendor-provided snacks we once had were sorely lacking. The only solution–buy our own machine and stock it ourselves! This was done through the same student’s fundraising efforts.
Student input into the machine’s contents continues. Recently, for example, a student conducted and independent study project on the social and economic exploitation done in the production of Palm Oil. When she presented it to me, we removed all items containing Palm Oil from the machine.
We have such things as natural granola bars, Lara bars (sweet and chewy with no sweeteners), Trio bars (3 seeds, 3 nuts, 3 fruits), organic whole-grain cereal bars, organic fruit strips, raisins, peanuts, almonds, pretzels, all-natural animal crackers, smartfood popcorn, pretzels, dried organic apples, V-8 juice, 100% juices, spring water, organic chocolate milk, natural potato and corn chips, etc.
This selection is not easy to achieve. It involves buying our own machine because no one will supply it the way the children deserve. It also involves weekly shopping trips at 5 separate locations, as no supplier will deliver our unusual selection. The selection is not only healthy, it is vegetarian, and intentionally avoids foods high in stimulants or strong odors as these may adversely affect concentration.
We could make a lot more money selling candy and soda, or other “junk foods,” but that clearly isn’t our style. We hope you feel as we do, that it is worth the effort we put into it.