(Ben Tompkins/northeastNOW)
Promoting Literacy

Melfort Rotary Club builds four ‘little libraries’ across the city

May 24, 2023 | 2:19 PM

The Melfort Rotary Club is promoting literacy in a unique way.

Along with help from the local high school and the city itself, the Rotary Club has built four ‘little libraries’ across Melfort.

According to director of public relations Gailmarie Anderson, this is a project they’ve seen done in other cities before and one that they wanted to join.

“One of our main agendas is literacy and helping kids to read and write because literacy gets people out of poverty, so it’s a literacy project that we’re doing for the first time,” she told northeastNOW.

The four locations are spread throughout the community to give equal access to all.

Locations include the memorial gardens by the post office, Broadway Ave. by the sports courts, Rotary Park by the playground, and Shadd Dr. by the skate park.

“Our library is fantastic, but it’s not open 24/7 and some people don’t aren’t able to get down to the library, as it’s a bit of a distance for south side people, or people in the northeast, so it’s another way of helping give access to books,” added Anderson.

“They’re very accessible from all parts of the city, we actually still want to make a couple more, but that probably won’t be till next year again. There were actually made five for us, but we gave one to the library, and they’re going to use it as a fundraising project.”

(Melfort CiB/Facebook)

The plan is to have the four ‘little libraries’ up all year round, with the take a book, leave a book method.

Each structure has also been strategically placed close to the road, path or sidewalk to allow for easy access, even in the winter.

“We want to encourage people not to empty the whole thing, so you can take one or two books at a time. Or, if there are several kids or something, then either bring those back or have some others to substitute for them,” explained Anderson.

“I would probably take one and put one there because I have tons of books at home, but if people don’t have a lot of books, the idea is that this is another way that they can get books to read. We’ll play it by year and hopefully, people realize how to use them.”

Each case was built by MUCC high school students during shop class, while the City of Melfort attached them to posts and put them in the ground.

All the cases are also painted blue and yellow with the Rotary logo, to signify where they can from, as well as stand out so they’re not hard to find.

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