PORT NECHES — Isabella Tonche and her sister Andrea Tonche each managed to snag a piece of free pizza, courtesy of Neches Federal Credit Union at Port Neches-Groves High School on Wednesday.

Classmate Kalli Tran wasn’t that lucky.

“It was gone like a camera flash,” Tran, journalism student and photographer, said with a laugh.

Actually it was gone in eight minutes, the pizza that is. Jamie Rosas, branch manager said they started out with 30 pizzas, which were gone, slice-by-slice, in eight minutes. The credit union gives freebies to students once a month. Past events include snow cones, Spoon It, Starbucks and more.

Rosas said her favorite event is probably the free snow cones. The reason: It is not as frenzied and there is more time to interact with the students.

The original plan on Wednesday was for free snow cones at a different location, but due to inclement weather, they ordered out for pizza, which was a popular option.

Isabella Tonche, a senior, was pretty hungry after a day of classes including cosmetology, she said.

Joshua Forsythe, junior, was one of the early ones in line and said he was happy for free pizza.

Jason Landry, CEO of Neches FCU, said the Neches branches they have in multiple local high schools support their strategic initiative to provide a strong financial foundation to young adults in the community.  The main objective is to boost financial literacy and teach real world skills.

The approach, he said, has been proven effective to advance the standards of financial education at no cost to schools or taxpayers.

“The branch is run by actual students of Port Neches-Groves High School and this gives them unprecedented real world experience both in running a full service financial institution and life skills of saving money,” Landry said. “Many of our student employees of our Neches FCU branch have gone on to work full time careers on our team.”