Wake up, eat and get ready for school. This sounds like a typical routine for any student. Many students also take a look at the time and realize they’re running late. Regardless of whether you live two minutes or two hours away from school, the morning rush is a quintessential part of any student’s day. However, this early-day chaos can often result in forgetting key hygiene routines or skipping breakfast. That’s where Jefferson Junction comes into play.
The Jefferson Junction is a new program meant to provide key hygiene items, like toothbrushes, dental floss or deodorant, as well as non-perishable food like snacks and simple breakfast items. Anyone can sign up to go to it, regardless of their free or reduced lunch status, although a meeting with a counselor is needed in order to be approved.
“I’ve been at [Jefferson] for 13 years,” Jefferson’s social worker Danielle Armstrong said. “The first five-plus years [of me being here], we had a free and reduced lunch population of less than 2%. Our incoming freshman classes have been around 20%, so there’s an increased need [for food] and we want to make sure that we’re addressing that need.”
This new program was founded by the Jefferson administration in the hopes of providing more support for students, especially those in need.
“It was really the vision of Ms. Wright and Mr. Mukai to really increase this level of support for students. So it was their ideas and with their support that we were able to do it,” Armstrong said.
Since its establishment, the Jefferson Junction has been used regularly by students to access hygienic items and food products. However, some of them have had experiences that subverted their expectations.
“I would say I had a negative experience using Jefferson Junction,” sophomore Ansh Ahlawat said. “It was inconvenient as it was not as accessible as I thought. You can go [to student services] and ask to go to Jefferson Junction, but you must discuss it with your counselor and get approval beforehand, which was [not convenient] for me.”
Despite the negative feedback from some students, the administration behind the Jefferson Junction has justification for the process of getting approval from a counselor.
“First and foremost, for students that need these resources, we have to make sure we have enough to provide,” Director of Student Services Sara Wright said. “So, we have to create a little bit of a barrier, we can’t just put all of our supplies out;, knowing hungry teenagers, they would just be gone in one day.”
When it comes to the quantitative success of the Jefferson Junction, there are no set goals for the usage amounts, although administration would eventually want all students that must utilize it to do so.
“We’ve only had [the Jefferson Junction] for a few weeks, but the first day that we sent out the announcement for students, we had students come,” Armstrong said. “[A sign of success would be that] students are coming forward and asking for the resources that are available. More than five students would be great.”