Self-Service

Derby, Kansas school debuts book vending machine

Tanglewood Elementary, a public school in Derby, Kansas, has unveiled its book vending machine.

March 25, 2024

Tanglewood Elementary, a public school in Derby, Kansas, has unveiled its book vending machine, according to a report from ksn.com.

The initiative was conceived by Kara Sumner, school media clerk at Tanglewood Elementary, and included repurposing a vending machine to vend books.

"They are earning tokens through civic engagement, inclusion with their friends, making good choices, being good, caring, empathetic people," Sumner said in the report. "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."

"The books are funded through PTO, and we order them through Scholastic," Amy Steadman, principal at Tanglewood Elementary, said in the report. "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."