One of the biggest statements made by the preteens that I minister to is - "I'm hungry, do we get snacks?" Preteens love to eat and having snacks are a big part of their day. Many kids come Sunday mornings without having had breakfast and many more come to our midweek programming without eating dinner (and if they did eat, they still want and need their snacks) What does a situation like this do to a learning enviroment - well it hinders the learning enviroment! Preteens can't focus on teaching points, because they are not feeling well, or they are constantly interupting you with questions about snacks, or "when class is over, so that I can go home to eat"statement. They become irritable and grouchy. Hunger is a huge felt need for this age group.

Solution? Well for us, providing snacks for the amount of 5th and 6th graders that we see every week is not possible. So what we did was create the "Preteen Canteen". The Preteen Canteen is where our preteens (Jr. highers and High schoolers are also coming to our Canteen) can buy snacks items to help curb their hunger pains. Prices are reasonable (most items are .25 and nothing is over .50) and there is a one dollar spending limit. The Preteen Canteen is open on Wednesday nights for about 20 minutes (beginning 10 minutes before our hour begins and 10 minutes into the hour). This gives preteens plenty of time to get and eat their snacks before large group time begins. The Canteen is also open on Sunday mornings for about 15 minutes before our preteen worship hour. While we would like to have it open for all three Sunday morning services, it is not possible, so we decided to open it during the service hour that has the most hang-out time for our preteens. I have one adult in charge of the Canteen, with a rotation of hand picked 5th and 6th graders helping out in a limited role on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. Some basic rules for the Canteen are: 1. Pick up after yourself 2. No eating when worship service or large group time starts 3. It's up to your small group leader to allow you to eat during small group time. If any of these are violated in large scale incidences, we close the Canteen for a determined time.

One of the things that we decided in the beginning was that the Preteen Canteen was not going to exist for profit.The purpose of the Canteen is to be one of the ministry tools of "The Edge" (Our preteen ministry), not a money maker, and if we did make a profit (Which we do and you will), the money would go to the missionaries that our preteen ministry supports. What we have done for budget reasons, is to include our "The Edge" t-shirt sales into the Canteen budget, so that together they are self-supporting. You can also use the snacks from the Canteen for other ideas, such as prize give-aways. We hold drawings with our computer check-in name tags on Wednesday nights and winners get to pick something from the Canteen. Also, on the last Wednesday night of the month, previous winners are put into a large drawing and 1st prize is a prize card that is worth five .50 trips to the Canteen (it's cool because the cards are hole-punched after each visit) and a "The Edge" t-shirt.

Hope this helps
Joe