Izzy Goodweather ’25

Want to cause an uproar at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School? Bringing up vending machines will do it. Here’s the update of the lions roaring over the vending machines… 

Junior Jake Steinman says that he tries to go down to the vending mention almost everyday but everyday has been the same outcome, “Disappointment, hungry, sad, all the words” is how Jack feels. Not only that but when trying to pay with cash it eats their money. 

Something the students may not know is that they are actually able to get a refund for when the vending machine gets hungry and eats their cash! All they have to do is go to the front desk and ask for a slip to sign. The money will be refunded once the request has been processed. 

Another issue raised by Jake was that even though the vending machines may have good choices, many times one or more machines are out of order. Jake said, “If one works and one doesn’t, the one that works everything is empty, and in the one that does everything is full”. This constant back and forth was described by Jake as “just unfortunate.” 

The Mane News also interviewed English teacher Ms. Kingi, who is a former St. Andrew’s student and current teacher who has been a part of the community for over 16 years. She says she tries to avoid the vending machines by bringing her own food because she cannot rely on them for a snack. While Ms. Kingi says she enjoys the options better than when she was at St. Andrew’s in the 80s, she feels that even with the new technologies such as apple pay, she still finds problems with the machines, ”I don’t (know) if they were more reliable, I feel like they still had their problems back in the day.”

Coming from the front desk, Mr. Caceres says that a lot of the time the vending machine issues spring from student misconduct, “it’s usually other kids pranking each other – that happened the first two weeks of school, kids were yanking the cord and it was really annoying”. This then causes further disturbance to users when trying to use the vending machines because the vending machine company needs to plug in the machines again. While coming to the front desk may seem like a good idea for your vending problems, Mr. Caceres disagrees and says there is literally nothing he can do when a machine breaks.

At the moment the vending machines are under contract with Evergreen Refreshments, and that company will likely be in control for the foreseeable future. The school is hands off when it comes down to fixing the machines and when they need to be refilled because the company should be automatically notified when there is a problem.

Mr. Mcknight, the head of the business department, has not heard of these complaints but says that if there are any, students should be going to their advisers and the student government to address the problems.

Photograph by Miles Hansen