LYNDON - The Town School has received two grants to fund their after school program. The program called "After the Bell" is open to all 6th through 8th grade students.The Lyndon town school is the only school in the area that offers such a program.  It is free for students, because of the $10 million grant that the school received from the department of education, which funds half of the program while the school pays for the other half.

The school offers three to four clubs a day for all different ages; one in particular is a cooking club where three to five students will enter a recipe in a Junior Iron Chef competition.

Right now, the 6^th through 8^th grade students go classroom to classroom selling items from their school store.  They learn the responsibility of handling money and developing their people skills.

Diane Janukajtis from the Caledonia North Supervisory Union says, "The school was already running the store, but they were having difficulty having it open very much, and I approached the school administration and asked if the after school program 'After the Bell' could take over, and they were thrilled."

The money the students raise goes back to the school and a percentage of the profit of certain items goes to charity.  The nonprofit organization the school chose is Kingdom Animal Shelter, a cat shelter in St. Johnsbury.  If someone were to buy a cat eraser, that money would go towards their charity.

"We don't just sell, we give to the community, we save up our money to buy new equipment, and we actually have an item that instead of going just to the school, it goes to the animal shelter." Says a 6^th grade student.

"It's run like a regular business, they have business meetings, they all have their own, each of them have their roles, marketing, etc.  They had to apply to work and be a sales associate, they have little pins just like any job." Says Janukajtis

The students that attend the after school program really enjoy it.  Fourth grader James Cole says what he likes about the program, "I like the computers, Mr. Kuntz lets us play on the computers."

"We just raised enough money to get a new cash register, and we're trying to raise enough money to get new equipment out on our playground." says club treasurer, 8^th grader, Tyler Mitchell.

The program is run every Monday through Thursday after school from 2:45 to 5:15.  After Christmas break, some new clubs will available for students to join and some clubs will be back again.

For more information on the after school program, you can visit the Lyndon Town School website.