Southern Delaware high school introduces new healthy vending machine for student athletes

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Student athletes at Sussex Central High School will see healthier options to eat in-between workouts and training as the school’s athletic department has rolled out its new Power Locker vending machine this summer.

Founded by John Swon and Peter Shebey, the Power Locker looks to give athletes “clean, organic and all-natural food and beverage choices,” according to the company’s website.

As student athletes at the high school go through intensive training this summer for sports like football, cross country, cheerleading, soccer, and volleyball, maintaining a balanced diet can be tough. Especially for students who often skip breakfast or post-workout meals.

Watching a football player devour four bags of Doritos was the last straw for Joseph Macaluso, an English teacher and defense coordinator for the football program at the high school.

“I was running our after school weight room program and I saw a football player who I knew worked out earlier in the day. He came in from track practice and walked through the weight room and said ‘Hello’… carrying four bags of nacho cheese Doritos,” Macaluso said. “I looked at him as he walked in and I was like, ‘Is that all for you? Are you sharing that?’ And he was like ‘No,’ he was like, ‘Coach, I’m really hungry.’”

Teaching and coaching at SCHS for over 10 years, Macaluso has frequently seen poor eating habits among student athletes and students overall during the school day.

Now that summer training has started, he often encounters his athletes arriving without breakfast or not properly hydrated. Long hours in the sun and workouts combined with poor nutrition can significantly impact their health and reduce the effectiveness of their training.

“I can’t tell you how often we get kids going into August football practice, we have the kids report at 8 in the morning, and these kids are coming up to us at 7:45 a.m. saying they haven’t eaten anything,” said Macaluso. “They’ve got nothing in their body. There’s nothing hydrating them. They hardly grab a drink of water when they wake up in the morning.”

It’s not a new phenomenon, either. He recalls a time back in 2018 when coaches were buying granola bars to keep students fed.

However, he hopes the issue of unhealthy eating will come to an end with the new availability of healthier alternatives to fuel their bodies, supporting their athletic performance and overall well-being.

“In the machine, all the products are hydration drinks, protein bars or protein milkshakes,” he said.

“It has a pretty wide selection of protein bars, you know, your normal 10 to 20 grams of protein, 25 grams of protein per bar. It has the protein shakes that are refrigerated,” he said. “There’s different types of protein pretzels and chips. They have a protein like cookies and like brownies and stuff like that for the kids to choose from and then obviously a wide selection of hydration drinks.”

“This is just another option. It’s just another avenue for them to be able to curb those cravings, you know what I mean and maybe provide them with a little bit of a boost until they get to lunch or until they get to practice,” he added.

While the vending machine’s initial snack selection was provided by the vendor, the school plans to refine future options based on student preferences to better support the entire student body.

“This could be something that starts a little bit of a change in the culture and propels some of these things forward. This is a visible thing that will start conversations about nutrition,” he said. “We want to talk about health, we want to talk about eating the right way and fueling our bodies correctly and all of those types of things and becoming a better athlete, becoming a more disciplined person.”

Within two weeks of the vending machine’s introduction, school leaders say the effort to promote healthy eating has been positively received not only by students but also by staff who may have forgotten to pack a snack. Following the school’s social media post about the effort, other schools in Delaware have also reached out to the vendor to replicate Sussex Central High School’s initiative.