When I was a freshman before COVID, me and everyone else would always use the vending machine. Whether it be after PE or at lunch, the vending machines were always there with snacks and drinks that were actually good.

Sometimes after PE in the morning, I would use the vending machine right next to the boys locker room and get a gatorade or a cold bottle of water. I’m no longer in PE because I’m a junior now but I know how tired one can be after a run and nothing was better than a cold drink to cool yourself down.

Unfortunately, that option is no longer available for the rest of the school year.

The snacks and drinks were better than the lunches that we get now. However, the lunches are free but I would still pay for good food from the vending machines than get the lunches.

The reason that the vending machines are no longer available for use is because they all happened to be broken. I doubt that they all broke at the same time but I can believe that maybe a few broke because they have malfunctioned in the past. If there are some that are not broken and still fully functioning, we should have the option to get snacks from it.

Students were also told that there would be staff members walking around the school with shopping carts that would sell the snacks and drinks that were sold at the vending machines. I would totally be down for this but we still have not seen anyone with snacks and drinks with shopping carts at lunch.

This next topic ties into the vending machines. Before COVID, there were a lot more options to choose from when buying lunch such as yogurt, all the snacks and drinks from the vending machines, and more lunch options like breakfast for lunch. They also had 4 lines rather than 2 lines so you could get lunch quicker and not have to wait in lines that stretched out across Campo Street.

The school really needs to bring this option back because it made lunch way more enjoyable rather than eating the same grease-dunked pizza, dry hamburgers, and cereal bars with the wrapper literally embedded in the bar, every week

So while we can’t use the vending machines because all of them are “broken,” we at least will get brand new vending machines. Only one problem, those vending machines won’t come until next school year. I understand that the school may not be as funded as they once were, but I don’t think it would take a whole school year to get them delivered and installed.

So although we won’t get the vending machines back for another year, it’s still nice to know that they will be coming back in the near future.