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School s food bank teaches students life lessons: This is a way to feed people with dignity
Last Updated Mar 1, 2021 7:09 PM EST
Sanger, Texas It was an innovation born out of desperation during the coronavirus pandemic: A food bank run like a grocery store inside of a school. The organizers said it s a way to give students life lessons in retail and respect. This is a way to feed people with dignity. So if you think about it, if a mom, single mom, is leaving the house and tells the kids, I m gonna go to the food pantry, or, I m gonna go to the grocery store. Which one has more dignity? Going to the grocery store. That s what we have right here. A grocery store, said Paul Juarez, the executive director of First Refuge Ministries in Texas.
Student-run free grocery store helps feed Texas town s hungry
The idea is to provide students with job skills, and at the same time help students, staff and community residents who are in need. Author: LUIS ANDRES HENAO (Associated Press) Published: 11:30 AM EST January 26, 2021 Updated: 11:30 AM EST January 26, 2021
SANGER, Texas Traditional school stores might offer snacks and knickknacks, school gear and notebooks but the one at Linda Tutt High School in Sanger, Texas, has a very different inventory and clientele.
At Linda Tutt you can get everything from produce, milk and eggs to pasta, peanut butter and canned goods to dishwasher soap and laundry detergent. Students and staff can shop there, but on Tuesdays, the store is open to the community.
Free student-run grocery store helps Texas families struggling in the pandemic
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This student-run grocery store inside Linda Tutt High School in Sanger, Texas is serving more than 130 families right now, and the clientele keeps growing.Dr. Anthony Love
Offering everything from free peanut butter and milk to canned goods, a student-run grocery store in Texas is giving back to its community by meeting the needs of families struggling in the pandemic.
Launched in November, this unique grocery store inside Linda Tutt High School in Sanger, Texas, is serving more than 130 families right now, and the clientele keeps growing.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a real need regarding food insecurity within the community of Sanger, according to Linda Tutt High School s principal Anthony Love. The concept of opening a student-run store was the brainchild of Paul Juarez, executive director of First Refuge Ministries and a collaboration between Texas Health Resources,
Texas high school principal Anthony Love said he began to notice many of his students fell under the poverty line and wanted to do more to help. His way of helping provide to families in need was by creating a student-run grocery store inside his school.
LUIS ANDRES HENAO
In this provided by Anthony Love, Hunter Weertman, 16, left, works alongside a fellow student to stock the refrigerator in the student-led free grocery store at Linda Tutt High School on Nov. 20, 2020, in Sanger, Texas. The store provides food, toiletries and household items to students, faculty and community members in need. (Anthony Love via AP)
Traditional school stores might offer snacks and knickknacks, school gear and notebooks but the one at Linda Tutt High School in Sanger, Texas, has a very different inventory and clientele.
At Linda Tutt you can get everything from produce, milk and eggs to pasta, peanut butter and canned goods to dishwasher soap and laundry detergent. Students and staff can shop there, but on Tuesdays the store is open to the community.