Christian Peterson
news@greenepublishing.com
Recently, the Junior Auxiliary of Madison County, Fla., (JAMC) gave the Madison County Central School a book vending machine. While the concept is simple, the effect on students is something that will be felt for a lifetime.
The story starts during the COVID pandemic, the JAMC introduced a new literacy project to Madison County called Finders Keepers. There is a large amount of poverty in Madison, and this causes books to fall to the wayside as a product for children. Many children spend their time with no books of their own. The pandemic caused the JAMC to begin getting creative to serve kids around the county. Without the ability to physically interact with the children due to COVID, the JAMC had a new idea. The members would get together every month and pre-bag notes and books in storage bags for children in kindergarten through fifth grade. They would then hide the books throughout the county in popular areas. Following that the JAMC would post updates, clues and pictures to their Facebook page, inviting students to go searching for the bags. Once the books were found, the finder would let JAMC know, then take the book home for their personal enjoyment.
Seeing the success of their Finders Keepers program and acknowledging the continuing need for books for students, the JAMC came up with a new idea. The Madison County School Board had discussed how they were dealing with behavioral issues within the schools. The JAMC wanted to get involved in the schools as much as they could. The group purchased a book vending machine through their annual golf fundraiser held in Lake City, sponsored by the Busy Bee. Madison County Central School is the biggest elementary school in the district so the vending machine was placed there in order to reach the largest number of young students. The children who exemplified good character would be given a token from their teachers or administration. This causes children to associate a reward with their good behavior and to associate a value with books. Then they can use that token at the machine to pick a book they can take home. They have the option to choose their own reading level or something a little more challenging they can ask their parents for help with. “As funding allows, we would like to progressively give book vending machines to all of our county public schools,” JAMC stated. Each book has an encouraging message inside from a JA member.
On Wednesday, Jan. 25, a ribbon cutting was held for the vending machine and the first students were recently given the opportunity to use their tokens. The top readers from the different grade levels of Madison County Central School were invited to be the first to use the machine. However, the very first person to use the machine was retiring school teacher, Heather Welch. Little did Welch know, the book she “purchased” was a farewell book signed by all the administration of Madison County Central School.
The celebration was a wonderful way to celebrate good behavior in the students. JAMC will continue to sponsor the next two rounds of books for the machine, before the school takes over. The school has money put aside to put more books in the machine and is already working on fundraising opportunities to put more books and more machines in different schools.
The goal of Junior Auxiliary is to find projects that will benefit the community that other organizations can take over or keep going. To learn more about JAMC visit their Facebook page or the website najanet.org.