Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Crestwood Intermediate School speech pathologist Caitlin Fritsch said she has noticed a gap in reading at the elementary level. With an $8,000 grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation and a $750 grant from the Walmart Store in Streetsboro, Fritsch has pioneered an initiative that introduced a book vending machine near the cafeteria at the beginning of the school year.
“I am really excited for it, and I really want to bring in literacy and we really have tied in the vending machine to our PBIS program, which is our Positive Behavior Program, that we do in our district by caring for our school,” Fritsch told The Weekly Villager on Aug. 22.
The school’s new vending machine, which was designed by the Global Vending Group, a company that sells new and used vending machines at wholesale prices, will contain approximately 120 books and be accessible to all Crestwood students.
The school’s primary grant came from the Martha Jennings Holden Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Cleveland that has awarded more than $170 million in grants over the last 60 years to Ohio’s non-religious, PK-12 school programs for a variety of projects and initiatives that foster deeper learning.
The vending machine was officially revealed to parents and students at the school’s Open House on Aug. 22. Prior to that, the school had teased its newest accessory through its social media page.
Each book in the vending machine will be worth one token, which can be purchased with 100 Devil Dollars, a form of currency that the school distributes to reward students for following the three district principles of caring for the school, self and others. According to Fritsch, students earn Devil Dollars for demonstrating the core qualities that the Crestwood School District prides itself on, by instilling in students the responsibility to follow the rules in class or lending helping hands to fellow students.
Once a student exchanges 100 Devil Dollars for one token, they can use that token to purchase one book from the vending machine. The vending machine operates like a standard snack machine, with the main difference being that instead of candy or treats, students can enrich their minds by selecting a book that they get to keep.
Fritsch said that the school personally designed the vending machine’s exterior to display the school colors and the school mascot, Dante the Devil, with the help of a student from Crestwood’s visual design program.
“I am really excited,” Fritsch noted. “I started this process applying for grants and working with Global Vending to find grants to fund this purchase in September a year ago and was then awarded grant approval in early spring. From there it was getting the artwork and company and having them design the machine and it arrived in July.”
She added that the school stocked the vending machine with books of fiction, including historical fiction and also graphic novels. She partnered with the school librarian and the title-reading teacher through the school’s scholastic program to figure out which books would interest the students the most and has purchased a few hundred books.
“We are talking Dog Man, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet, there is a whole bunch of series like the Story of a Dog but they are titled dog names like Toby, and Max so I tried to get a conglomerate,” Fritsch said.
According to Fritsch, the school still has money remaining from both grants and will use the remaining funds to purchase more books when their stock runs low.
Fritsch said that her driving motivation for wanting the school to have a book vending machine was because she noticed that students were becoming increasingly glued to their computer or tablet screens.
“The amount of time that kids have screens on is astronomical and I think that has also impeded students in their reading skills. They think why would I read when I can just watch this YouTube video instead,” she noted.
Fritsch is optimistic that they will embrace this opportunity to enhance their reading skills and improve Crestwood’s reading proficiency.
“I really just hope it helps as much as it can,” Fritsch said. “I really don’t have much to gauge it against per se but I will be intrigued to see, once school starts, how much students are spending in our school store vs are they saving for the book vending machine.”
