Excitedly holding a golden token in their hands, a group of second-and fifth-grade students at J.L. Everhart Elementary School awaited the unveiling Wednesday of a book vending machine on campus.
It was the fourth machine installed at local school as part of the Greater Longview United Way’s Read to Succeed program.
Previous machines were installed at Spring Hill Intermediate School, Chandler Elementary School in Kilgore and Pine Tree Junior High School.
Waiting for a book to drop from the machine and hearing “your book is on its way” was music to the students’ ears.
Fifth-grader Alexa Martinez had her eyes on a book in the “Harry Potter” series.
“I wanted to get ‘Harry Potter’ because I feel like I learn a lot of stuff in it, and I like to read because you can learn new things and know new things,” Alexa said.
Fifth-grader Messiah Williams said he wanted a book about his favorite sport and was looking forward to putting his mind to work while reading.
“I got this book because I love basketball, and I think I can experience a lot of basketball through this book,” he said.
The book vending machine, now inside the library, was given to the campus through a grant sponsored by Greater Longview United Way. Wellness Pointe also donated $1,000 for the next five years to help replenish the books in the machine.
During Wednesday’s ceremony, Evan Dolive, executive director of Greater Longview United Way, said the nonprofit organization is proud to partner with Longview ISD, especially on something that helps with the Read to Succeed initiative and has shown success among students.
“We focus on three core things at the United Way, and that’s health, financial stability and education,” he said. “We know the challenges facing educators, because of the COVID slide. We talked to schools that had a machine like this and they reported to us that the number of books checked out at the library went up because of the machine, the reading scores across the district went up and behavior problems went down.”
Crystal Locke, principal of J.L. Everhart, said she is thankful for Greater Longview United Way and Wellness Pointe and is looking forward to the impact of the vending machine.
“I hope (students) take away the love for reading, the desire to have more knowledge, the desire to go out and investigate things that you want to learn about,” she said.
Locke also mentioned the books will provide quality education for students on a daily basis by providing an opportunity to read things they normally wouldn’t be able to. She also said the vending machine will help students enjoy reading more and will help with reading and comprehension skills, which will be an asset to the students’ future.
To receive tokens to use at the machine, Locke said students will be awarded through incentives such as attendance rewards and good behavior.
Locke said a main goal is to allow every child the opportunity to get a book.