Elm Street Little Free Library opens in Olney
Shanda Hope is looking to provide a little extra help to get Olney kids reading. The Elm Street Little Free Library launched on Saturday at 701 West Elm in Olney. The library has children’s books that are ready to be used for the upcoming school year.
The Little Free Library organization has little library’s all over the U.S., that are ran by stewards in their local community. The movement has rapidly grown and provides an opportunity to promote literacy, and community where they are at.
Hope was looking for a project and came across the Little Free Library online.
“I was looking around on the Internet and I came around a structure that said Little Free Library. I didn’t think anything of it, but I got to looking into it a little more and found out that it’s an actual thing, like an actual company. I have the plaque coming with the charter number. That should be here tomorrow. You can register it on the website and put it on a map and everything,” Hope said. “I just got to thinking that it would be really fun, a fun way to get them into reading. Seeing everyone come and get books, and sharing the love of reading with everybody. Cayson struggles a little bit in reading, and he isn’t really a huge fan. I thought, maybe this will get him more into it.
Hope quickly saw that it was a project that could be fairly easily tackled.
“I got to looking more at the different structures I could build, and I got all the materials on hand, and I got all of it done
in a weekend,” she said. “When I say I am going to get something done, I do it. I got it pretty much done over the weekend and then we threw some finishing touches on it and decorated it up. It was fun.”
The actual structure that sits in front of the Hope’s home is an old diner stand with a built structure on top of it made of plywood with roofing shingles on top to help keep the elements out. The structure can hold roughly 100 books depending on the size of the books inside of it. There were 71 books available inside of the library on Monday evening.
Hope expects most of the books to wind back up at the library.
“I actually wrote inside of mostly all of them, Elm Street Little Free Library. Some people have stamps and it says ‘Elm Street Little Free Library, always for free, never for sale’. My hope is that people will see it and be like, ‘Oh let’s take that back.’ Kind of like, take one leave one or bring yours back and take another one. Really it was just going to be a let’s see how it goes kind of thing and see how it works out,” she said.
Hope has received a good amount of donations and has more books that can be put inside of the library.
“I still have a bunch of donations that I can put in there. So I thought Saturday if it gets drained I can put more in there and then go that way and encourage people online,” she said. “I made a Facebook page for it. That way I can ask for donations that way and remind them to take one and return it.”
Chapter books are the biggest need for the library.
“It’s mainly just going to be for children’s books. We have a ton of elementary type books. I think it would be great if we could get more of the chapter type books,” Hope said. “I have had several that come by and they have already read what’s in there. So, I’m going to look into seeing if I can’t get more of the chapter books for them to read. I think that would help. If anyone has anything to contribute. We need more of the older stuff.”
Hope launched the Elm Street Little Free Library on Saturday to capitalize on the City Wide Garage Sale. She is still waiting for the library to really take off.
“The weekend was the City Wide Garage Sale and I thought it would be a good opportunity to get it started, but there wasn’t a whole lot of people out. We had some close friends who go to church with us, some neighbors over by my mother-in-laws that came. Other that, it hasn’t been a real big draw in,” Hope said. “I have tried social media and passing out flyers. I think we passed out 200 flyers with the city wide garage sale list. I just haven’t had much of an interest in it yet. I have had plenty of people talking about online on Facebook, but no one has really came yet. I had a few people come out Saturday and basically that has been it.”
There are high hopes that the Little Free Library will help promote reading amongst the area youth, and that it will help make reading fun for those who have seen it as more of a chore.
“The kiddos have to read 15-30 minutes a night. We have a ton of books but Cason and Collin have read them all,” Hope said. “So, I thought ‘What is a way we can get these kids into new material, that they are reading something new every night?’ What a better way to have something like that, where you can trade out books. They bring their books and take one out. That way everyone has something new to read every night. Just encouraging them, ‘Oh let’s ride our bikes over and get a new book to read.’ That might be more fun for them. I want that to influence them to be like, ‘Oh look at them getting their books and we should (be) like that too.’ That way they will be more into it. Mainly, just to have new material to read. I want it to work mainly on a take one, leave one, exchange type basis. We have had lots of donations that have been great.”
The Elm Street Little Free Library is just getting started and there is plenty of potential for the future of the project here in Olney.
“I have had a lot of people that are excited about, but I want more traffic,” Hope said. “I think when the weather cools down it might help.”
The books are always available on a free basis at 701 West Elm Street. For those interested in donating additional books, feel free to drop them off at the library or on the porch. For additional information check out the Elm Street Little Free Library on Facebook.
For more information about the organization go to www.littlefreelibrary.org.