News | Textbooks

Nelsonville business donates $75K in books, supplies to local school districts

by Casey S. Elliott, The Athens Messenger staff journalist on 1/4/2012 • Category: Textbooks

Nelsonville-based ED MAP has donated $75,000 in textbooks and school supplies to three Athens County school districts.

“We recently identified a number of materials that we no longer needed,” Kerry S. Pigman, chief operating officer of ED MAP, said in a news release. “Rather than selling these materials in the secondary market, we recognized another opportunity to support our community.”

According to Pigman, ED MAP sent a list of available materials to local school districts, asking if any of the items could be used, and Athens City, Nelsonville-York and Trimble schools expressed interest in the items.

ED MAP provides textbooks, course materials, books, eBooks, apparel and educational supplies to higher education institutions. The company was founded by Michael Mark, who realized while working for Ohio University’s distance education program in the 1990s that no materials distributor served his program or his students adequately.

Nelsonville-York Supt. Mick McClelland said Monday that ED MAP’s donation provided his district with some new art books and books used as supplementals in other classes.

“My curriculum director and the teachers are really excited about it,” he said.

McClelland said the district tends to replace books on a three- to four-year cycle.

Trimble Local Schools often has difficulty updating its textbooks due to tight budgets. The Trimble Textbook and Supplies Foundation helps the district and, over the past nine years, has provided the district with $341,520 for textbooks and educational supplies.

Diane Hobson, director of curriculum, data and testing at Trimble Local Schools, said in a news release that she was thrilled to receive the donation from ED MAP.

“The textbooks and manipulatives that ED MAP is contributing to our district will assist in student learning and in our school improvement efforts. The teachers and students at Trimble Local School District are very appreciative for the support ED MAP has shown for our school district as well as neighboring schools. We are fortunate that ED MAP has been able to enrich our student learning opportunities during these challenging economic times.”

Tom Parsons, director of curriculum and development at Athens City Schools, also expressed appreciation for the donation.

“Many of these resources will go to special education classes at our high school and help fill a need there for more manipulative materials. The others will help to supplement board-adopted English language arts materials at both the elementary and middle school levels. In all cases we are appreciative that these help us present our students with a richer program.”

-- From The Athens Messenger, December 28, 2011

Back to ED MAP News