PLAINVIEW, Texas (NEWS RELEASE) – The following is a news release from the City of Plainview:
The Plainview Breakfast Lion’s Club recently completed a Little Free Library box and the City of Plainview Park’s Department installed it near the pavilion at the Travis Trussell Pond.
Breakfast Lion’s member Dr. James Todd and his wife, Martha, were visiting McKinney and saw the Little Free Library boxes in downtown flower pots and decided to research the possibility of bringing them to Plainview.
“We found that many people were using them and there were none in West Texas,” says Dr. Todd. “We decided it would not be that difficult of a project.”
Little Free Library is a neighborhood book exchange. Adults and children are invited to take a book, borrow a book or leave a book in the Little Free Library box.
“Many of the Breakfast Lions are educators,” says Nelda VanHoose. “Encouraging reading is important to us and this was a perfect project for our club.”
The first box was installed in late spring. Martha Todd, a former librarian, has been organizing the books and working with other members to ensure that the box is maintained. She notes that normally around twenty books a week are put in the box and ten to twelve are taken with children’s books being the most popular.
“We are excited about the usage of the Little Free Library,” says Dr. Todd. “We are now focusing on the stewardship of the box – learning what the community wants, what books to have and how often the books need to be rotated.”
Sam VanHoose constructs the boxes from polyvinyl chloride and tested it during the winter. The boxes proved weather-proof and are approximately two feet by two feet and have a glass door for a preview of available books.
Plans are in the works for another box in the next couple of week with forty more possible locations for the books. Having more boxes means needing more books.
“Replacing ten to twelve books a week is five hundred books a year,” says VanHoose. “We are needing donations of books, money to purchase books or volunteers to help rotate books in the Little Free Library.”
Anyone interested in donating or volunteering for this project can contact the Breakfast Lion’s Club at plainviewbreakfastlions@gmail.com
“We appreciate the Breakfast Lion’s taking the initiative to provide reading opportunities to our community,” says Mayor Wendell Dunlap. “Placing them in the park is a great way to make them accessible for everyone and the Park’s Department did a great job getting them installed – we encourage everyone to use them.”
(News release from the City of Plainview)