The Bernice Sayese Centre in Prince Albert is now home to a book vending machine which distributes books by Indigenous authors and illustrators.
The machine was officially unveiled Wednesday morning at the Bernie Sayese Centre.
Anna Stene, the program director for the Prince Albert Indian Métis Friendship Centre, which worked to acquire the machine, said they are happy about how the roll out has been going and the response so far.
“We’re so greatful for Bernice Sayese Centre in helping us make this happen, also we’re so thankful for all the community support we’ve had, so far,” she said.
Stene said the Bernice Sayese Centre which is located on the west side of P.A. was a good location for the machine, explaining the centre is close to a number of schools. She did stress that the machine is meant to serve the entire city.
“We don’t want to just make it for the west end of Prince Albert, its for the whole city, but with that being said there’s three elementary schools down in the west end, so I believe this is going to really benefit the community, the schools,” she said.
Putting the machine at the Bernice Sayese Centre was not originally part of the friendship centre’s plans when they acquired the machine from Start2Finish, which is an initiative funded by TD Bank and aims to provide book vending machines and books with culturally relevant materials to schools and community organizations. Stene said they hoped to have the machine in their building, but ran into some challenges.
“Our building has stairs and this is quite a big machine, so that wasn’t working, I had to kind of figure ways to, where we can keep this machine in the community, because its going to benefit a lot of youth here,” she said.
The machine runs on coins which are provided to people who want to get books, there will be no charge for the books and Stene said they plan to restock it on a regular basis. Stene said she is not aware of their being any similar machines in the province and added they are hoping it will be a permanent presence at its current location.
“We’re hoping to have this at the centre for the next two years for sure and in the future years if its successful, we’re going to have it permanently,” she said.
(Top Photo: School kids with books from the machine. Photo submitted by Anna Stene.)