Derby elementary school gets vending machine, and it is not for food or drinks

DERBY, Kan. (KSNW) — Tanglewood Elementary, a Derby Public School, revealed its book vending machine to its students on Wednesday.

The idea was Kara Sumner’s, the school’s media clerk. Sumner, among others, repurposed an older vending machine to be able to vend books.

“When the opportunity came, and we could make those connections, it just snowballed. It became a project that so many people in the building became involved in,” said Sumner.

The school’s Parent-Teacher Organization, which supports and funds the vending machine, gets books to put in the vending machine from the school’s Scholastic book fair.

“The books are funded through PTO, and we order them through Scholastic. So our PTO actually has Scholastic book fairs that we do very regularly and they use their funding and earnings from that to be able to purchase books for the vending machine. So, everything goes back to our Tigers,” said Tanglewood Elementary Principal Amy Steadman.

Students are incentivized to do great things to earn a coin and get a book.

“They are earning tokens through civic engagement, inclusion with their friends, making good choices, being good, caring, empathetic people,” said Sumner. “Also, their academic and maybe even personal goals, because you know, what is a mountain for one person is a tiny little hill for another and we need to be able to acknowledge when somebody reaches their mountain top.”

Two students were able to get the first books out of the vending machine on Wednesday.

“We had two kiddos today who actually wrote a grant with me to get funding for music and art and get a few extra supplies and were awarded that grant, and so they got the first two coins and were able to take and get books out of our vending machine,” said Steadman.

“Some of our students may not have an opportunity to have books at home that they own …  and being able to purchase a book and getting to keep it, and it be a part of your life is, is a treasure that you’ll get to keep with you always,” said Sumner.

The book vending machine is the first of its kind in the district.