The 3D Printing Club is running a book drive in collaboration with BookSmiles. This book drive is built off of the club’s previous relationship with BookSmiles who has worked with the club in the past to help them 3D print bookmarks for the nonprofit.

“As the printing club, before I’ve even joined the E-Board, we have been working with BookSmiles in the past. We incorporated 3D printing and we 3D print bookmarks, and they will hand those out with the books,” said Ryan Hussey, president of the 3D Printing Club. 

While printing bookmarks for BookSmiles aided the organization, Hussey aimed to grow the club’s relationship with the company beyond just making bookmarks, but also keeping in mind some way to help further their cause. He also applauded BookSmiles for the good work and impact that they have in the community. 

The drive itself consists of the club collecting the books from the separate book drops scattered around the campus. After the collection, they look through the books, mainly collecting well-kept books to package them and drive them up to the warehouse in Cherry Hill. The warehouse organizes the books by reading level, age range, and genre.

“Reading is very important for any kid at any age level, that they’re able to read books and have access to read what they want,” Scott Sunheimer, vice president of the 3D Printing Club said.

There were challenges with the book drive, including contacting the right people at Rowan University who would allow the club to allow the book drive in their buildings.

The accessibility to books for all different children who want to broaden their reading horizons was the intended impact of this book drive. This drive also focused on working to help the environment by reusing books for a better purpose.

“In general, doing something not for yourself, but to serve others in service is good,” Hussey said. “I think just doing an event like that, you know, regardless of what it is, our members will be more inclined to want to do service and reach out.”

Hussey reminisces on his younger years and the opportunities he had with the amount and availability of books that were at his disposal. He hopes that future kids could have the same opportunities he did and help the next generation of children have that same variety of books for them to read, comprehend, and understand. 

For any potential future book drives organized by the 3D Printing Club, Hussey and Sunheimer have already made preparations to run the drive smoother than the first iteration went. 

“In general, just being able for our E-Board members that aren’t graduating, it’s nice to show that we’re doing this. Hopefully, they can continue to do this and then they’ll add on to it, and we can grow. Maybe we could do work with three, five, how many organizations we can,” Hussey said.

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