Book vending machine unveiled at Hillman Elementary School

ALPENA -- Hillman Elementary School students have a cool new way to receive books after the school recently unveiled and held a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new book vending machine.

"We always strive to support what students like to read," Crystal Vogt, principal of Hillman Elementary School, said. "The book vending machine will provide a choice for them."

The machine was added to Hillman Elementary on Aug. 31 and, according to Vogt, was part of an effort to find new exciting ways to supply students with reading material.

"The students at Hillman Elementary really love reading," Vogt said. "We wanted to give them an exciting opportunity to be able to get new books and choose what they want."

Vogt said the vending machine will contain a host of different books, ranging from fiction to nonfiction and picture books to chapter books. Vogt also expressed interest in surveying students in the future to get a better idea of what they want when it comes to reading options.

"We chose to go with the setup, to be able to have picture books, and chapter books, hoping to capture all students within our school, grades K through five," Vogt said. "We're gonna include nonfiction books and fiction books along with holiday books as well. And, we're also going to survey the kids to ask them...what kind of books do they want to try to...get their interest and have them have some ownership with that as well."

Students can access and keep the books using tokens provided to them for things like good behavior and excellence. Vogt said that she can already see excitement from the students for the new machine.

"Students are super excited about it," Vogt said about student responses to the book vending machine "They can't wait to get their tokens to be able to get the book and to be able to use it.

The book vending machine was primarily supported by donations from the Hillman community and Vogt is grateful for the support that it provides for the school.

"We would like to thank the community for supporting us with this," Vogt said. "We're always so thankful for our community and Hillman, they always do what's best for kids, and we love that."

A book vending machine was also introduced to Besser Elementary School in Alpena on April 31. The Besser machine also uses tokens that are awarded to students for their positive behavior.

For Alpena Public Schools, the idea for a book vending machine was conceived as a way to further encourage students to read during their free time.