The Trace Crossings Elementary School (TCES) BUC’s Club, a community service club for students in grades 3-5, is participating in the Little Free Library book-sharing initiative. Little Free Library is a nonprofit organization that promotes neighborhood book exchanges, usually in the form of a public bookcase.
The BUC’s Club partnered with Hoover City Schools’ Riverchase Career Connection Center (RC3) to assist the students with the project. RC3’s carpentry students built the little libraries and taught the students how to assemble them throughout the construction process. BUC’s Club students painted and designed the bookcases, donated books, and made bookmarks. A Little Free Library is located on the campus of TCES, and the club recently obtained approval to place a second one in the GreenTrails neighborhood.
Terri Coleman, TCES counselor and sponsor of the BUC’s Club said, “I am so proud of our students and their parents. First, for allowing them to participate and take time out of their Saturdays to not only get them to the service projects and jump in and assist. I am proud of the students' desire to understand others and roll their sleeves up to see what they can do to assist others and create a better community.”
The student leaders of the BUC’s Club voted to participate in Little Free Library to address literacy issues among their peers and provide students at TCES and in surrounding neighborhoods with access to free grade-level books to read. BUC’s Club member Kiersten Howard, a fourth-grader, completed the detailed artwork for the second Little Free Library installed in March. The BUC’s Club decided to host a contest for the artwork, and Howard's design won.
Howard said, “I think we did a good job because everybody pitched in on the project. I love that we get to help kids that can’t afford to go to libraries or buy books for themselves. I hope that we can get a lot of people to donate books.”
According to its website, more than 90,000 public book exchanges are registered with the organization and branded as a Little Free Library, and now TCES’ Little Free Libraries have joined the list. Coleman says the BUC’s Club purchased a charter registering its projects with the Free Little Libraries program. Here’s a link to the Little Free Library’s website: https://littlefreelibrary.org/
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