Scores of Orem High School students are clipping store coupons, but they're not doing it to save shoppers money. Instead, the project is intended to raise money for an expansion of the school's library and media center.
For the past month, the students have been bringing Sunday newspaper coupon inserts to class and practicing their three C's - categorizing, clipping and collecting product coupons - while hoping to raise the matching funds necessary to expand the library into a "Sky-brary."Since last Saturday, at least two students and one member of the Orem High School Parent-Teacher-Student Association have been at both Storehouse Market Savings System stores in Orem to tell shoppers about the project and ask them to donate their coupon savings to help raise the necessary funds.
Envelopes containing nearly 100,000 clipped coupons have been placed near products in both stores for patron use until Sunday, March 6. However, the students are asking that the customers not use the coupon savings but instead donate them to the "Sky-brary" project fund.
"We know people like to have savings," said Zac Napierski, Orem High's student body president and one of the project's planners. "But we're hoping for a week that they can hold off so we can have a library addition."
The school's existing 4,800-square-foot library, which has plentiful study and research supplies, has only one entrance and no windows - making it woefully inadequate, according to Napierski.
"In addition to maybe being a fire hazard, it's no environment for people to succeed academically," he said. "It has excellent resources, but the atmosphere is just so much worse."
The planned addition, which would require removing one of the library's walls, includes a greenhouse-like, 640-square-foot atrium - opening into a courtyard. The atrium would be supplied with tables, couches and chairs and provide extra room for bookshelves.
Cost estimates for the atrium framing and window work alone total $40,000. Already, an anonymous donor has pledged matching funds for the project - meaning that if the coupon effort raises more than $20,000, the donor will match it and perhaps pay for decorating and furnishing the addition, Napierski said.
"Our library will still be a quiet place," he said. "But this will give us a nice place to study and possible use as a reception center. Plus it will give us more exits and really open up the place."
Joining student leaders and others in the clipping efforts have been students hoping to make up citizenship grade credits, as well as students at Canyon View Junior High, who could benefit from the project.
"It's actually been a real student effort," Napierski said. "Everyone's gotten involved and that really makes it all worthwhile."
Student organizers began the project after hearing about a similar fund-raising activity at a school in Mesa, Ariz. If the project raises the necessary funding, construction could begin this spring, and the "Sky-brary" could open as soon as the next school year.
Orem High Principal John Childs said he is proud of the students' efforts, which involve "hundreds of students working toward a common goal."