Mequon Campus has a lot going on. The library is filled with computers and large windows that allow natural light to illuminate the books and future MATC graduates. Friendly students stroll through the halls conversing and hurrying to class. The lounge areas are clean and inviting with soft sofas and large tables to relax and read. Getting lost in a book at one of these locations can be all one needs to escape the tribulations of the daily grind. The smaller student body and open area creates the perfect atmosphere for study and respectable activities.
As a part of a service-learning project, Professor Heidi Hilby’s General Reading and Study Skills class held a book collection drive to encourage children and adults to open up a book and read. Informative flyers can be found around all campuses.  “It’s a good idea. I’d donate more books if I had more because it will help a lot of kids and grown people with reading,” said Tracy Smith, an MATC Liberal Arts student.
Adult books will be available at a “Take a Book – Leave a Book Nook” at the Mequon campus. Children’s books will be donated to local homeless shelters in Milwaukee.
At the end of the book drive Hilby and her students will take a field trip to local shelters to affirm their decision on which shelter they will donate the books to. The books will be equipped with a trifold pamphlet explaining how reading helps and why it’s important to read to children. Donation boxes are located on the upper and lower levels of the Mequon campus and near the entrance of the main building.
“If you can read, you can figure out almost anything,” said Hilby.
Hilby’s GENREA student, David Jones states, “The service learning project is cool. The books will help kids learn.”
Hotel and Hospitality Management student Melanie Critton believes the project is, “Innovative by including faculty and students in on the project, and creative by affecting kids as well as adults.”
Hilby and her students have collected 162 children’s books and 37 adult books thus far. This book drive has the potential to render magnificent results; injecting free books into the community will provide the opportunity for children and adults to improve their literacy and unleash a fresh imagination.
It’s no surprise that the culmination of great MATC students and faculty have developed a proliferating project to enrich the community with knowledge by donating books.