Mission College

This Fall, Mission College Library started a Food for Textbook Program. It is a service to help students defray the cost of textbooks and is based on the successful program at our sister college, West Valley. Students are able to check out a textbook or calculator for the entire semester with the donation of 10 cans of food. The canned food is donated to Second Harvest Food Bank.

This collection is a combination of donated textbooks and textbooks purchased with grant monies. We started with 346 textbooks available for 54 different courses. So far this semester, 128 textbooks have been checked out by 101 students, which resulted in a savings of $13,718.74. This allowed Mission College Library to donate 1,852 pounds of food to Second Harvest, which is the equivalent of 1,543 meals. We expect these numbers to increase when the program becomes better known.

In October, students who had checked out a textbook through the program were sent a survey. Below are some of the comments we received:

•"It's a really awesome program because not only are we being helped with the free rental, we are also able to participate in a program that is helping others as well and that is a very beautiful feeling!"
•"It's a great program that benefits the students and the people who are able to get the food cans."
•"This is a truly amazing program. Textbooks can be so expensive and this has helped tremendously."

For additional information about the program, go to the Library’s Food for Textbook web page (http://www.missioncollege.edu/lib/food_for_textbooks).