J-D High School Book Club members coordinate project
DeWitt residents who enjoy using Ryder Park during the summer now have another activity they can choose from in the 12-acre park — they can borrow and read a book from the newly installed Little Free Library.
Little Free Libraries promote the exchange of books by setting up hand-crafted structures in community areas where people can “take a book, leave a book.” They are typically created by community members or area libraries. In this case, it was the members of the J-D High School Book Club who brought the library to life.
“We started as a typical book club, bringing together people who enjoy reading and chatting about books, but in the past few years we decided to take a more unconventional approach, doing volunteer projects and enriching the community through reading because we found that more productive,” said Melissa Gao, book club president. “We wanted to focus our energies on meaningful projects that we could complete — and for us this was the Little Free Library.”
Once the JDHS Book Club — which is comprised of about 15 members — decided on this project, they undertook book fairs at the DeWitt Barnes and Noble, with funds raised to go towards the project. They decided to locate the LFL in Ryder Park because of the high volume of public use, and appeared before the DeWitt Town Board to gain approval for the project.
“We could have just put it at JD middle school but we wanted to push ourselves and thought Ryder Park would be good,” Gao said. The board said yes, “and we were so happy about that.”
The group then asked JDHS senior Ben Wormuth — who was not a member of the club but was known by many students to have a passion for woodworking — if he would construct the LFL.
“I was really happy to be able to use my skills to help the book club – once I heard about it I knew it was a really cool project to be involved with,” Wormuth said.
Wormuth sat down with club members, discussed ideas and drew up plans for the library, which took him a total of eight months to complete, he said.
The book club also solicited book donations from the DeWitt Community Library to be used in the LFL, which the library happily obliged, Gao said. The club stocked the library with children’s adult and teen books, and will be responsible to maintain and monitor the LFL inventory, she said.
The student group coordinated also with Dale Longden, Superintendent of DeWitt Parks Department, to install a Little Free Library in Ryder Park near the playground. It was installed on Friday, June 9.
“The students did a phenomenal job with this LFL project,” said Mary Panek, Book Club advisor. “I am very proud of their accomplishments and commitment to working on this project from inception to completion, complete with fundraising efforts, meeting with a local LFL steward, scoping out the location, building the structure, presenting their ideas at a DeWitt Town Hall Board meeting and organizing the first round of donated books for the LFL.”
Although the Ryder Park LFL has been up little more than one week, a lot of books have already been taken, Gao said.
“It’s actually being used, actually making a difference on the DeWitt community — something we have been planning for two years is actually being used,” she said. “It’s exciting for us to get something this permanent and big in this community, considering the small about of people we have. The amount of support we’ve had has been really incredible.”
According to the Little Free Library website, as of January 2016, there were more than 36,000 registered Little Free Libraries in all 50 states and 70 countries.
In recent years, Little Free Libraries have been installed throughout Central New York, including in Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville, Jamesville, Cazenovia, Brewerton, Marcellus, Elbridge and throughout the city of Syracuse.
For more information about Little Free Libraries, as well as a map of Little Free Libraries throughout the world, visit Littlefreelibrary.org/ourmap.
