Theresa Leeds keeps a busy schedule. The East Coast-born Las Vegan works full time as a real estate agent (“very full time,” she laughs) while raising two teenage sons. But that doesn’t keep her from running the “Snack Shack” at the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts—a pop-up operation providing healthy brain food to LVA students who don’t have time to hit the cafeteria—on a strictly volunteer basis, week after week. (You can see the Shack for yourself on Instagram at @lva_snack_shack.)
Leeds spoke to the Weekly about what it takes to keep budding creatives fed, and why she does it.
When did you come to Las Vegas? In the early 1990s. I was born in New York, raised in New Jersey. I moved here as a 19-year-old. It was really hard for me to make the transition, being a born-and-raised East Coaster. I wanted a family; that was very important to me. But I had a very difficult time deciding whether or not to raise a family here.
One of the things I learned quickly was the more you invest, the more you get out in return. So it was important to me to invest completely in my children’s education. And I wanted to do it through the public school system.
That’s why you began volunteering at local schools. Yes, I volunteered at every level. Once my oldest hit middle school, though, things changed; parental involvement isn’t quite the same. I sort of dropped off, but was still very involved. When I got the chance to volunteer at the LVA Snack Shack … it allows me to interact with the kids, but the focus isn’t on my son. He was able to be kind of anonymous, and I still got to be the Snack Shack Lady (laughs). He was OK with me doing it, because I wasn’t embarrassing him, and I still got a chance to interact with everybody that he was going to be interacting with, which as a parent is important to me.
What is the LVA Snack Shack and why is it needed? When it was passed off to me, it was volunteer-based and relatively new; I believe that when [Principal] Scott Walker took over the school [in 2011], there were a couple of parents who saw a need for it. They started the Snack Shack … to facilitate being able to feed that many children in a very short amount of time. One of the reasons why LVA is a successful school is because they do block scheduling. Students have an hour for lunch, but that hour lunch is “lunch and learn”—their time to go to the teachers to get extra help, to do homework. So we want to make sure that they get something to eat, but also not lose any precious time to be able to study, get caught up or get extra help.
Tell us a bit about the operation. What makes a Snack Shack go? It’s considered one of LVA’s historic buildings, one of its original buildings, but it’s tiny. I don’t have a lot of space, and I only have so much electricity, so I don’t have a microwave. I’ve got hot water, which we can do with Cup Noodles—my No. 1 seller—and hot cocoa. But it’s mostly just snacks, healthy things that will give them a little bit of fuel.
Their lunch is from 10 to 11 a.m., so it’s just a nice mix of something lunch-y, something breakfast-y. And I never stop moving for a solid hour. I get there an hour beforehand to set up so I’m ready for them. We went through some iterations of the most efficient way to move as many people as possible through our line, because it is a lot of kids—LVA’s total [enrollment] is 1,600—and I’m getting at least half those kids.
And you’re sourcing the food? One hundred percent of it. The Costco Business Center down on MLK has been a good partnership; they know we need our delivery before 9:30 in the morning. I’m not a big buyer there, but I need my stuff when I need it. So they deliver for me, and then I show up and make sure everything’s organized and ready for my volunteers. Like I said, the biggest thing is moving the food and getting the kids through the line as quickly as possible. We don’t want them standing in the heat. I bought a tent, so we can get a little bit of shade.
Do you have regulars—kids whose orders you know before they even walk up? Oh, yes. I call them my Snack Shack groupies. I’ve got my goth gang right now. They look straight out of 1986; it’s adorable. They have their Cure and Smiths T-shirts. I’m like, “Do you really like them? Talk to me about Morrissey. What do you think about Siouxsie and the Banshees?” Yesterday, I wasn’t feeling well, and I asked on Instagram, “OK, guys, what movie recommendations do you have for me?” Not only did I get them, they came back today to discuss them with me. I mean, there’s truly no greater joy.
Every now and again, I encounter somebody who grouses that the arts aren’t important. What would you say to someone who asks why we need creative education in Vegas? These kids teach me lessons, because of the environment that they’re in—an inclusive place that supports their creative imaginations. They’re tolerant. They’re patient. They’re kind. They’re good kids. We want more of them. And if we take away their ability to be creative or expressive in any way—recess, sports or even the arts—we’re creating robots. We want interesting individuals that have unique thoughts, who bring their own personal point of view to the table.
