Since the school year started, Roxboro Community School (RCS) staff have enjoyed a free, made to order coffee a few mornings every week courtesy of the staff and students in the Exceptional Children (EC) program. The coffee cart program was started by the high school EC coordinator, Autumn Snow, as part of her intro to career management elective class. This new initiative began after Snow applied for and received a grant from the Person County Education Foundation last year. The goal of this initiative is to enrich the education of the students in this curriculum by providing practice with communicating with others, doing things in sequential order, and overall providing invaluable job skills.
The coffee cart is available to all staff at RCS. It is typically done about twice a week and has served around eight people each day, many of whom have been regulars since the school year started. As one of these regulars, high school Biology teacher, Ashley Bailey, said, “I love the coffee cart, it brightens my morning. It doesn’t take much to make a day special and knowing that we have a little treat that we can look forward to is wonderful.”
While the coffee cart was in use last year on a smaller scale, it has certainly expanded this year. Prior to the delivery, Snow sends out an order form to all the staff at RCS with what will be offered that day. Occasionally, during holidays or special occasions, there will be a special offering, but the offerings typically consist of coffee, hot chocolate, chai lattes, and apple cider. After receiving the orders for that day, Snow writes the name and order out on a cup sleeve, and the students take it from there. The students are responsible for using the Keurig to make the drinks, adding in the requested sugar and cream, and then delivering the coffee by themselves. According to Snow, “It’s not just making coffee or making hot chocolate, it’s that they understand that first we do this, then we do this; it’s steps in a process.”
Snow would like to see the coffee cart continue to expand in the future and be able to support itself by charging small amounts or donations. Her goals for this program is for it to become even more student run with students taking the orders completely by themselves as well. She would also like to see it expand to provide drinks for students as well. This program will likely continue to grow and evolve in the future.
