The School Store and the Starving Spartan Cafe feed hungry students and staff throughout the day

By Samuel Sprague, STAFF WRITER

SANFORD, Maine – Sanford High School has two food markets operating in the building in the 2023-2024 school year: The School Store and the Starving Spartan Cafe. Both are thriving in popularity, practicality and customer service.

The Starving Spartan Cafe is in the Life Skills Suite on the second floor next to the Agora. It operates on Tuesdays and Thursdays during block 3 for staff only, and block 4 for both students and staff.

The Starving Spartan Cafe is based in one of the Special Education Centers in the school, and the staff is made up of the students in their classes. The Cafe allows the students to learn life and job skills that they will be able to use later in life, such as counting money, giving change to customers, using a register, and cooking. 

“Academically, they’re learning reading and math with the recipes, and it makes absolute sense to them,” said Trey Pariseau, one of the teachers guiding the staff in the Cafe.

The Cafe does not necessarily have a regular or rotating menu at this point in time, so “we figure out the week ahead of time what we want to offer the following week,” added Pariseau. 

The School Store resides in the downstairs blue-wing special education classroom. They have a rotating variety of snack foods, which are “mostly grab and go items, and drinks,” according to Stephanie Boissoneault, one of the teachers who assists with the store. These items include bags of chips, popcorn, and flavored drinks. It is open blocks one, two, four and five. 

The store allows students to have social interaction and learn pre-vocational skills, such as interacting with customers. Students are responsible for assisting with “food prep, cleanup, taking inventory, stocking and restocking, and helping customers” under the guidance of teachers, according to Boissoneault.

The interactions between students in the store and customers are valuable to both parties. Students will often “engage in short conversations, and these interactions build into relationships that spread to the hallways, gym, and cafeteria. Through the relationships that are built starting in the school store, they can walk down the hall and be greeted by teachers and peers,” according to Boissoneault.

She continued, “Ultimately between the previous skills and social interactions the students gain incredible self-confidence and self-esteem.”

The school also features a free food market for students run by the Sanford Backpack Program, known as the SpartMart. The Sanford Backpack Program is the “largest school-based food pantry in the state of Maine,” according to Lori Williams, the administrative assistant for the Sanford Backpack Program.

The store features items such as “frozen meats, some frozen convenience food items like a pasta meal or a cheesy uncrustible, fresh produce, there’s stuff for breakfasts, lunch, dinners, everything you need to make tacos or spaghetti, oatmeal, all kinds of stuff that you’d want in your cupboards at home,” according to Williams.

The SpartMart provides students with food and removes the stigma that comes with food insecurity. The store is open on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 2:20 to 4 after school. Williams described the store as granting students choice in the food that they bring home. “It’s not a handout, you’re choosing your own thing, it might make someone feel a little more prideful,” she said. “There’s power in being able to choose your own food.”

Finally, the Spartan Snack after school continues to be a huge hit with students as they leave the building or for students fueling up before practices and extracurriculars.