Mesa View welcomes new book vending machine

GRANTS, N.M. – Mesa View Elementary School recently welcomed Grants/Cibola County School District’s first book vending machine. On Monday, April 11, Mesa View faculty, GCCS Superintendent Max Perez, and representatives/employees from Tom Fitzsimmons State Farm Insurance Agency gathered to celebrate the new addition, recognize one fourth grader’s literacy achievements, and accept a donation from Tom Fitzsimmons State Farm. It all started when Mesa View Instructional Coach Amy Cameron attended a training via a Zoom video call, during which a principal from another school district shared how ecstatic they were to have their school receive a book vending machine. Cameron, intrigued, asked more about it, so the principal shared what it was, how it worked, how they got it, etc. Cameron loved the idea, so she presented it to Mesa View Principal Jennifer Griego, who also loved the idea. Cameron and Griego forwarded a proposal for the project over to GCCS’s Central Office and they approved of it as well, especially considering that this year’s theme from the New Mexico Public Education Department is improving literacy.

With the help of GCCS Director of Federal Programs Delton Martin, funding for the vending machine was discovered and secured, and the machine and tokens were then delivered from a company called Global Vending Group. According to Cameron, the cost of the vending machine was about $6,000. As for books, the machine can carry 300 books at a time, and this is the part that Tom Fitzsimmons State Farm will be helping with.

The vending machine, which Mesa View has named the Book Worm Vending Machine, was filled with its first set of books using funding from Mesa View’s Scholastic Book Fair. Instructional Coach Cameron explained the rest to a group of elementary school students this way: “Can you imagine once 450 students start buying and purchasing these books, what’s going to happen to the books?” To which the kids responded, “They’re going to disappear!” Cameron agreed and said, “So then that’s where State Farm comes in. We reached out to State Farm, which is a couple blocks away, and we asked them if they could help us fill our vending machine with books, so they’re going to help us purchase books to keep this full.” All the kids yelled out, “Thank you, State Farm!”

After presenting the machine to some students, State Farm employees Rosalia Morales, Mable Martinez, and Amy Apodaca, gathered for a photo with Superintendent Perez, Principal Griego, Instructional Coach Cameron, and fourth grade student Natalie Chavez, while they presented their donation of $500.

State Farm’s Rosalia Morales spoke on what it means to be able to contribute to this initiative: “We feel honored that Mesa View reached out to us for help. We set a budget at the beginning of every year, and we try to contribute, donate, [and] sponsor programs that develop our children and our community. So, to be able to be a part of this is just an honor.” Tom Fitzsimmons State Farm, located at 800 N First Street, has been in business for 43 years, and Fitzsimmons’ father owned the business before that for 17 years, making it a total of 60 years in business.

Natalie Chavez, a fourth grader at Mesa View, was the first student to use the Book Worm Vending Machine since she met and exceeded her literacy goals for the quarter very early on. A quarter consists of nine weeks, and Chavez met her AR (Accelerated Reader) goal three weeks into the quarter and has gone far beyond her goal since then. Before inserting her token to receive a book, Chavez helped Superintendent Perez cut the celebratory ribbon tied around the Book Worm Vending Machine.

More students will be able to use the machine as they meet various literacy goals. According to Cameron, the school’s student body has been split up into two groups – Pre-K through second grade and third grade through sixth grade – and each groups teachers will come up with ideas for how they will award points to students for reaching various literacy goals appropriate for each grade. Each student will be given a punch card, provided by Mesa View, and each punch card has ten available punches, which will be given when a certain number of points are obtained or goals are met. Once a student reaches ten punches on their card, they will receive one token that can be used to insert into the Book Worm Vending Machine for one book. Cameron said this won’t be an easy task.

All parties involved in bringing the Book Worm Vending Machine to Mesa View Elementary were very excited about the initiative and the message that it promotes. According to Cameron, the message being promoted through this initiative is that “literacy is important.” Cameron added, “Reading is the foundation to everything.”

Mesa View is the first GCCS school to welcome a book vending machine, but according to Cameron, if everything goes smoothly and the addition seems to work out well, it could soon become a literacy incentive for all GCCS schools to adopt. Cameron believes the Book Worm Vending Machine and the shiny, gold “I LOVE BOOKS” tokens will create incentives for students to want to compete, read more books, and hopefully improve their literacy.