New book vending machine provides food for thought for students in Janesville
The new machine sits in the library at Harrison Elementary School
JANESVILLE, Wis. (WMTV) - Harrison Elementary School in Janesville held a special ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday morning to celebrate the arrival of their new book vending machine.
“I’ve been anticipating this moment for a long time,” said Megan Schultz, a reading interventionist at Harrison Elementary School.
Schultz’s job, in part, is to encourage children to fall in love with reading.
“One student one time told me ‘I don’t have books at home.’ And besides the books they bring home from the library, where do they get those books? We want to give books to them to keep,” said Schultz.
Schultz said she’s been working for more than a year to get the vending machine in the library.
“We were just like little kids on Christmas standing by the door just waiting for its arrival,” she said. “Once it was here, I just couldn’t wait to set it all up and fill it with books.”
Schultz says the vending machine costs $6,500. She wrote grants and received money from the PTO to pay for it.
“This year, we went to the PTO and asked this year could we use some of our funds for the book vending machine and they thought it was an awesome idea.”
The book vending machine works just like a regular vending machine. But instead of accepting money, the machine takes gold tokens that the students can earn.
“Any adult in the building can nominate a student for any reason. Maybe they are being kind to others, maybe they reached an awesome literacy goal, or maybe a math goal,” said Schultz.
The machine is designed to get kids excited about getting lost in a book.
“Every time the kids walk by they are like ‘ahh I want to get a book from there!’ so it’s exciting to see their little faces,” said Schultz.
The very first student to use the machine was first grader Miracle Harding. She chose a book called The Pigeon Needs a Bath.
“It looks awesome, and it’s got lots of my favorite books,” Harding said about the machine.
The machine is the first of it’s kind in the School District of Janesville.
“That’s why we are so excited because we had this opportunity, and we took it. Hopefully other schools follow this lead because it’s really cool,” said Schultz.
The machine is currently filled with $1,000 worth of books. Schultz hopes those books last the rest of this year and most of next school year as well.
Click here to download the WMTV15 News app or our WMTV15 First Alert weather app.
Copyright 2024 WMTV. All rights reserved.
