Dear Wolf Editorial Staff and TuHS Community,

My name is Steve Johnson and I have been proud to be a Social Studies teacher at Tualatin High School for the last 10 years. If you travel around the 200’s, you might also know me as the “guy with free snacks”. Since I became a teacher 20 years ago, I have had a coffee maker in my classroom and was happy to share it with a student who asked. Post-pandemic I have expanded the operations of room 215, to have granola bars, fresh apples and oranges, and hot drinks for anyone who needed them. And while members of our community have generously donated boxes of granola bars to help in feeding you all, it has made a small dent in the overall financial burden of approximately $200 a week. 

My desire to provide snacks for all that have needed them comes from a place of love.In my family, if you love someone, you feed them. As our community came back together after the pandemic, it became important to me that all TUHS students felt like this school was a place for them and they were cared for. I share this mission with all my colleagues who give freely of their time and resources to support student needs outside of their course curriculum. 

So I am writing to you all today to say that while I can no longer afford to provide granola bars freely to anyone who needs one, it does not mean that I care about you any less than before. I will still have hot drinks and fresh fruit for anyone who needs it but I can no longer manage to provide granola bars. It is heartbreaking to tell you I can no longer meet a need that clearly exists but please know it’s not because I don’t care.

If you are reading this letter and feel like you can support my mission to make sure that all students get their basic needs met while at school, I have a SignUp Genius page for donatable items. 

Sincerely,

Dr. J