Students from the 18-21 learning program at Shaker are doing good things for the community with the help and support of North Colonie. They call themselves the Bison Breakfast Club and since March, they have raised $1,452.76 for local charities.
“It was a ray of sunshine for the BBC students to have the opportunity to become operational once again and the continued support of our customers prove what a generous school community we are a part of,” said teaching assistant Mary Oakley. The students started out offering coffee and muffins for faculty and staff at the high school once a week, but over the years they expanded their menu and now make special deliveries every day. A big hit among faculty and staff at the North Colonie Central School District is the trail mix the students make themselves.
The Bison Breakfast Club brings so much joy to our community and being able to run this mini-business has opened up so many opportunities for them to develop new skills. They provide entertainment while making their rounds, posting a “Riddle of the Week” and a “This or That” survey. The students use the survey results to make a bar graph that they share with customers at the end of the week. Christina Manion, the lead teacher of the program said, “A simple ‘This or That’ survey has led to the students learning how to gather data, input information into spreadsheets, formulate graphs, and analyze the information to share with our customers.”
The Bison Breakfast Club students choose the recipients for the donations each week, this is a list of the last five:
- $293.79 – St. Jude’s Hospital
- $211.07 = Latham Fire
- $292.00 = American Red Cross
- $455.32= Mohawk Hudson Humane Society
- $254.58 = Capital City Rescue Mission