Do you have a vending machine at your school? For a growing and developing high school student food is essential to our health.
The lunches at school are some of the best, but as teens one meal doesn’t fill us up for the grueling seven-hour school day. The vending machine used to be the spot where we could get that little snack to get us through the day.

As of now, the school only permits the vending machine to be open before or after school or during lunch itself. The vending machine should be open all day to ensure that students are able to feel fulfilled and work to the best of their abilities in their classes.

The hours of the vending machine are during the morning until 7:20a.m. This is way too early for a quick snack. The other time is during lunch which occurs from the times of 10:45a.m. to 1:00p.m, depending on which lunch you have-1, 2, or 3.

Although it is open during lunch, many times students only eat from the cafeteria and seem to forget about the vending machine. Another concern is that third lunch starts at 12:00p.m, which means that it is three classes into the school day before lunch, so many students that have this lunch are hungry by the time they get to their third class.

“I’m always starving before lunch and I barely can focus on my third class,” sophomore Kristine Villena said.

Aside from lunch, the vending machine also opens after school at 2:30p.m. By this time, we are rushing to go home and end up bypassing the vending machine.

More opportunities need to be available to use the vending machine to satisfy hunger throughout the day.

The administration limited the vending machine availability because last year there were extremely long lines and many times girls used their phones in order to pay with Apple Pay. This is obviously an issue, as OLLA has a no phone policy during school hours.

Although these are valid reasons for limiting the vending machines, teachers can manage them and be on top of how many people can use the vending machine at once.

On the contrary, in order to manage the long lines the school could actually add another vending machine on campus. They can also advise that only those with physical credit cards and money could use the vending machine.

Although there will be times where girls do what they shouldn’t be doing, in these situations there should be consequences, like an infraction. This could resolve some of these issues and would allow the vending machine to be open at all times, especially during FOCUS, where many girls take the time to get a quick snack before classes begin again.

Food is fuel. Many times students stay after school and the vending machine is already empty for the day.

Students should be able to have the opportunity to use the vending machine at all times during the day.

In addition, having the vending machine open during all hours of the school day could be additional revenue for the school which could be used to improve the school. The whole purpose of a vending machine is to put it to use, so why don’t we?