Belleville Rotarians unveil Little Free Library at Victory Park

On Tuesday evening, May 26, the Belleville Rotary Club unveiled its first Little Free Library in Belleville’s Victory Park next to the gazebo.
This is the first of several others that the club has in mind for the area. Little Free Libraries are being set up throughout the country by service groups, corporations and individuals.
The concept is simply to provide reading material that individuals of all ages can borrow, read, and return as they wish.
Furthermore, borrowers are encouraged to donate a book that they enjoy and would like to share with others.
Here’s how it works: Simply open the front door of the library, find a book that interests you, take it with you and read it. You may return it when finished or pass it around to your friends.
If you have a book to donate to the library, just place it on the shelf. If there isn’t room for the book, come back later when there is more room or contact the Belleville Rotary Club at 734-697-3731 (Jerry Richardson – steward of the Victory Park Little Free Library).
According to Richardson, this Little Free Library movement embodies the ideas of Rotary. It reaches out to people, builds them up and helps make them better without regard to who they are or where they come from.
It is Rotary’s hope that this dedication to the citizens of Belleville will help strengthen the community and advance literacy for all who use it. More information about the Little Free Library movement can be found at littlefreelibrary.org, including a global map of all the registered libraries.
The library box was fabricated by Dr. John MacDermid and the post was installed by Keith Bruder.
The very first Little Free Library was created by Todd Bol near Madison, WI. Bol put the Little Free Library in his front yard as a gift to his neighborhood in loving memory of his mother. It was stocked with the books that she had accumulated over the years.
People from the neighborhood liked it so much that Bol built more and gave them out to other neighborhoods in the Madison area. From there, the concept
got wings and began popping up all over the globe. There are now over 26,000 Little Free Libraries in all 50 states and in more than 80 different countries.
This has become more than just a global literacy movement. It has become a way to help connect people locally in their
neighborhoods and communities.
Interestingly, in October 2014, 25 Little Free Libraries were donated, as a gift, from the State of Wisconsin to the City of Detroit, to help Detroit become the Little Free Library capitol of the world. Those libraries were built by the Prairie Du Chien Correctional Facility.
— Ray Eissinger