Fellowship Hi Crest Church in Tokepa Kansas gave the gift of literacy to their local elementary school, Ross Elementary. The gift comes after almost a year of students learning outside of the classroom where, many experts feared reading levels would begin to slip nationwide for most young students. Inchy the Bookworm Book Vending Machine will have a new home at Ross Elementary in Topeka Kansas.

Practicing What You Preach

According to Pastor Johnathan Sublet, the gift of reading was an overdue one. As quoted in the KSNT news story, Pastor Sublet said, “They say if you don’t learn how to read by the end o the first grade, you’ll likely never catch up in your academic career. So we know how important it is for us to help our young scholars learn how to read and do all that we can.”

Pastor Sublet has a founded point. Statistics of Kansas elementary school students show that in 2019, only 66% of elementary school students were reading at a 4^th grade level by the time they entered the 4^th grade. Because of the lower rated in literacy, the students left behind in the reading level at that age, are four times as likely to not graduate from high school.

Importance of Literacy in Kansas

The attention to literacy has been serious in Kansas especially amid the pandemic. During the summer of 2020, the Kansas Health Foundation partnered with eight communities to bring $2.7 million in funding to improve early childhood literacy, starting with kindergarten readiness. The United Way of Greater Topeka partnered with the Kansas Health Foundation to better serve their community, and all the area schools.

The Gift of Knowledge

Inchy the Bookworm Book Vending Machine has become an asset for schools all over the country—changing the way children view books and reading. If a child has the opportunity to choose what they read as a reward for good behavior or grades, then they will see their gained knowledge and intelligence as a gift and treat it thus. In this example of Pastor Sublet and the congregation he serves, their donations and the school, the knowledge and literacy gained by the young students, truly is a gift. 

Join The Inchy Family

If your community or school district is interested in having an Inchy to encourage students to read more, we can help here at Global Vending Group. Each school district has their own unique story to how they funded and brought an Inchy to their school and we would love to help you tell your story to your community and nationally here on our blog. If you would like to know more about how other schools brought Inchy to their school, you can read more from our blog, especially this post with funding opportunities. Give us a call or leave your information here and we will call you back to answer all of your questions and partner with your school in improving literacy one student at a time.