Little Free Libraries Program in Lake Worth

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Letters to the Editor
POINT OF VIEW
Palm Beach Post

June 6, 2016

Access to free books helps children

Regarding the May 27 Post editorial, “Superintendent right to focus on third-grade reading skills”: Helping to reverse the appalling trend of so many of our children who are struggling to achieve proficiency in reading, as cited in that editorial, the Lake Worth Little Free Libraries project has made a good beginning.

We have funding provided by grants from the Palm Beach County Office of Community Revitalization’s Resident Education to Action Program (REAP); cash donations from local businesses and groups, including CWS Bar & Kitchen, Guardians Credit Union and the Firefighters Local 2928; a grant from the Lake Worth Community Development Corp. to pay for bilingual children’s books; and support and assistance from the Lake Worth City Commission, city administration and the Lake Worth Library.

Those partnerships have been matched with truckloads of donated books from neighbors all over Lake Worth. In addition, in collaboration with our Lake Worth neighborhood associations and the Friends of the Lake Worth Library group, we have planted more than 40 of these wonderful little book-exchange boxes in the last year.

Each of these Little Free Libraries has been lovingly painted and is tended by volunteers we call “stewards.” They look after the little libraries, keep them neat and tidy and, most importantly, they encourage neighbors to use and care for the Little Free Libraries as if they belonged to every child and grown-up in Lake Worth — because they do.

Twenty more Little Free Libraries have recently been funded and will join the others in neighborhoods and public spaces located all over our city this year. When that happens, we will be well over halfway to our goal of having a Little Free Library within walking distance of every household in Lake Worth. Anyone passing by is welcome to take a book, share it with a friend or exchange it whenever they want at any of our Little Free Libraries.

We know there is no easy solution to the problem of improving our children’s reading proficiency. We do, however, know what it looks like when our children and their parents, who may not otherwise have easy access to our public library, discover the Little Free Library right in their neighborhood. We are sustained in our effort by the delighted faces that return again and again to “Take a book — leave a book.”

The Little Free Library movement was started in 2009 with one little box built by one man in Wisconsin, to honor the memory of his mother, who was a teacher and a librarian for 30 years. Albert Einstein said, “All you ever need to know is the location of the nearest library.”

MARY LINDSEY, LAKE WORTH

Editor’s note: Mary Lindsey is president of Lake Worth Little Free Libraries Inc.