Warhawk Interact, Arrowhead’s volunteer group, led an Interact Book Drive between April 10th and April 23rd. It was in preparation for a free book fair that Arrowhead was hosting on May 13th. 

Warhawk Interact prioritizes serving the school and community and “encourages a lifelong commitment to help others” according to their webpage linked above. The advisor is Kevin Lewandowski, the school psychologist, and the assistant advisor is Molly Sroka, South Campus’s P-Z counselor. 

Warhawk Interact was asking for gently used books that would be offered at the free book fair. All extra books would be donated to different organizations, a few being Hope Center, a non-profit social service organization, and the Salvation Army, a Protestant Christian Church service organization. 

In an email sent to all Arrowhead staff, Lewandowski gave the incentive to donate as many books as possible. He said, “Interact is asking that you PLEASE push this drive with your students as much as you can. (…) We are going to reward the winning department at either campus with a purchased lunch from a local establishment.  If you travel between campuses, you will be included on both teams!” 

Math teacher Alicia Obermann took that to heart and she managed to collect over 1,700 books. Her original goal was to get 1,000 and she set the goal on her whiteboard. She sent a Skyalert message for all of her six classes and, together, they were able to hit the 1,000 book goal. By the last day, Obermann sent out a Canvas email and got 600 more books for her students, totaling just shy of 1,700 books.

“Promoting events to kids and families to work together towards a goal is huge; it’s how progress and change happen!” Obermann said, “Getting books in the hands of students where they can read books they’re interested in will make students stronger readers and hopefully spark future interest in reading.”

Obermann has been teaching at Arrowhead since 2010. She specifically teaches Trigonometry, Precalculus, and Geometry at both North and South campus. She has a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and a master’s degree in Educational Learning, which she got at St. Norbert College and Cardinal Stretch respectively. 

Her inspiration to participate in the drive was because of her time as a student. She said, “Thinking back to when I was a student, the most exciting and memorable experiences I had in high school were when teachers and schools promoted contests, penny wars, food drives, etc. and competitions were involved. Those events, to me, are a part of what makes the high school experience FUN.”