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Schools in Claiborne County received over $16,000 this year to invest in classrooms, equipment and essential supplies through the Food City School Bucks program.
The program provides $800,000 for the program each year and customers in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia and Alabama can earn points for their school by linking their ValuCard to it. Each dollar spent at Food City earns a point for a school and the $800,000 is divided up based on those points.
For 2023-24 Midway Elementary led Claiborne County — and was sixth in the entire program — by earning $5,787 in School Bucks. That was up from $1625 the previous year when they were also the top school in the county.
“We had a huge increase last year in the county with this program all thanks to the school staff, friends and family members getting the word out and folks taking the time to link their cards to a school,” said New Tazewell Food City manager Brandon Miracle.  “Looking at the numbers, we can do even better this year and get the county a larger piece of the pie that (President/CEO) Steve Smith has set aside for us.”
Claiborne County Director of Schools Meredith Aronold expressed the school board’s gratitude to Food City and the School Bucks program during the August board meeting when she announced that Midway received $5,787.
“A big thank you goes out to all of the families who participated in this program and a big thank you to Brandon Miracle of Food City. We certainly appreciate everybody’s support with this.” she said.
Miracle said the  program donates to over 1200 schools in the five states in which Food City operates. He reminds everyone that they must re-link their ValuCard to the school of their choice each school year. This can be done through their FoodCity.com account on the web or via the mobile app. School staff and Food City store staff can help if customers have trouble linking their account to a school. The ValuCards must be linked now through Dec. 31 to count for this school year.
School Bucks points are earned for all purchases except gift cards, fuel, Western Union services and lottery tickets.
“I always remind folks that it doesn’t matter which Food City store you shop at, if you have chosen your school the purchase counts for them.  Most folks have some sort of connection to our schools and this is an easy way to support them,” Miracle said. “Midway is a prime example of what can happen when the community acts, with a 256% increase over last year!”