Linda Tutt High School in Sanger, Texas, opened up a grocery store inside the school last month to help put food on the table for students and their families.
But the unique store doesn’t accept money. Instead, students pay for their purchases by earning points from good deeds. Principal Anthony Love said:
“How often can a school say they have a grocery store inside their walls?”
With the help of local partners like Albertsons, Texas Health, and First Refuge Ministries, the school created the grocery store in an extra room. Love added:
“A lot of our students, they come from low socioeconomic families. It’s a way for students to earn the ability to shop for their families. Through hard work you can earn points for positive office referrals. You can earn points for doing chores around the building or helping to clean.”
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Students in the entire school district, north of Dallas, and their families can buy whatever they need using a number of points, which is initially set depending on the size of their family.
After that, students can earn more points for outstanding performance in school, doing good deeds which teachers and staff can award points for, or completing jobs around school such as helping out in the library or mentoring elementary school students.
Paul Juarez, the Executive Director of First Refuge Ministries, said he hopes the idea is implemented in other rural areas, adding:
“These points were actually given by the students, so we walked through here and decided that a can of green beans was one point. It gives us a picture of what can be. So if we can do this inside other schools it will do a whole lot to help other small towns.”
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The store will also hold food drives weekly for the community and supplement other food insecurity programs in the area.
Sanger’s City Mayor Thomas Muir is proud of what the school and community has accomplished. He said:
“We all had our first jobs and it taught us how to work, and what you got for your work.”
The store is currently open Mondays through Wednesdays for students and employees in the school district and for one hour on Tuesday for the public. The store will be open to the entire community in Sanger on December 15.
