Mr. Kent’s economics class had been working on their projects for several weeks during first semester, and one of the many groups which consisted of Jesse Hertzke, Virgil Cannon, Emma Jaworski, Isabella Tiu, Mikey Martin, Jaden Seno and Brett Thomas, had quite the turnout. Overall, the group collected over 2,000 books for the book drive.
“Our teacher wanted us to get involved and come up with a solution to end poverty and take action to be able to jumpstart a solution. Our group sourced a lack of education as a main reason for why people end up in poverty and jumpstart their education. Having a book drive seemed to be the best way to attack this plan. We planned to do everything that we can to assure the success of this book drive and would be open to starting other drives at other schools,” said group member Emma Jaworski.
This project is actually something new that the social studies teachers were trying out to see what the outcome would be like.
“I am always trying to think of ways we can make econ relevant and help people see the real life connections,” said economics teacher Johnny Kent.
The organization that theycran the book drive through was Bernie’s Book Bank which collects books for children struggling with poverty and financial issues so that they are able to jump start their education and literacy.
“Before we did this project, I had volunteered many service hours there. I even built four wooden tables on wheels with bins that were more efficient for workers and volunteers,” said sophomore Jesse Hertzke.
The classes had six weeks to work on their projects, five of which were student directed where the students worked with fellow classmates on their project and the components.
“The groups went above and beyond. They demonstrated an ability to find new solutions [when they hit roadblocks],” Kent said.
The group has planned another book drive starting January 22. The drive will continue for two to three weeks or until regular donations stop.
“If schools keep providing books, it seems silly to stop the drive,” Jaworski said.
Overall, the group members have prepared many weeks in hopes for a successful project and book drive.
“We put a lot of effort into making [the book drive] run smoothly. We pretty much doubled our goal, and the total came to around 2,000 books,” Hertzke said.