Leverage Your Healthy Self-op Vending Program

OK, It’s a given... it is very difficult to motivate teenagers to learn. Perhaps some of your teachers have even tried the ‘Free Food’ idea. But was it nutritious?

There is nothing wrong with motivational incentives. This is a basic truth of human nature as well as the learning process. We all need a reason for doing what we do. The better the reason... the greater the incentive. Now food is a great motivator!

Have you ever considered the attendance difference in a social event when free food is being offered? Why do you think corporate meetings often include coffee and pastries? It’s a fact - free food motivates. The greater challenge with motivating public school students is that we just can’t offer them chocolate, sugar or fatty snacks to perform better in Math, English and Science. We don’t want to sacrifice healthy sciences curriculum just to improve in another category. We aren’t looking for see-saw education, but the comprehensive, go-for-the-gold, renaissance-man (or woman), total education package. So how do we motivate students with free ‘healthy’ food and beverages? The answer is: we make it “cool” and we generate some positive peer influence.

This is a new millennium. It took thousands of years from the technology of the saddle to the automobile. It only took decades from the car to the space shuttle. We just can’t do things the same old way. Let’s reverse the "stereotype"... let’s have the teacher give the apple to the student... at least, the student that improves.

Vend-ucation can give you coupons that can be inserted into the vending machine to redeem free food and beverages...limited to whatever selections you prefer to offer out of all the selections in the machine. Why not an apple? .. or a chocolate milk? ... or a bag of baked sour cream & onion chips? ... or some dried fruit? ... or a bottle of cider?... or some string cheese? .. or cereal? You choose the range.

The Nutrition Department offers special magnetically printed coupons to the scholastic departments at a slight discount. They buy these coupons using their budget dollars. The Math department can use their incentives budget to buy these coupons for less than face value (10-20% less is recommended, to leave the cafeteria some room to cover their costs and make a very modest margin for sponsoring this program). A math teacher then offers their students free food if the whole class can raise their aggregate test scores by just 3% .. or 5% ... or whatever. This sets a pattern for positive peer influence. Students are encouraged to help each other for their own personal benefit. Academic improvement becomes a social event. This converts competition to cooperation. Everyone wins together or loses together. When the test scores do go up these students get to put their coupons into the healthy vending machine for free food in front of all the other students for that ‘cool’ motivation which is priceless. Everyone wins. The student wins. The teacher wins. The scholastic department wins. The school wins. The nutrition department wins.

We are Vend-ucation. Healthy school vending has been our business from day one, long before it became the social standard. The Academic Rewards Program is our creation and exclusively available from Vend-ucation for schools operating their own vending machines. If you want to know more... check out our Contact Us page.