Growing Little Free Libraries in Denver’s Book Deserts

In 2009, Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin, built a model of a one room schoolhouse. It was a tribute to his mother; she was a teacher who loved to read. He filled it with books and put it on a post in his front yard. His neighbors and friends loved it, so he built several more and gave them away. 

~ from introduction to Little Free Library, littlefreelibrary.org

Todd’s project inspired a collaboration with U-W Madison’s Rick Brooks in 2010, establishing the organization Little Free Library, a nonprofit with the intention to inspire a love of reading, build community, and spark creativity by fostering neighborhood book exchanges. Have you heard the saying, “mighty oaks from little acorns grow”? From these early seeds, this year Little Free Library surpassed 100,000 registered Libraries in more than 100 countries.

You have probably seen these little book boxes sprouting up all over. Maybe you have even planted one, or found a book you wanted to read or donated a book for someone else to share. If you haven’t noticed them before, you will now. Is there a LFL in your neighborhood?

The mission of Little Free Library dovetails nicely with our mission here at BookGive: To spark a lifelong love of reading by fueling metro Denver with free books. The first step to increasing reading is increasing access to books.

At the height of stay-at-home orders in Colorado, BookGive volunteers loaded up Mavis the Magical BookMobile and drove around to various neighborhoods contributing free books to existing Little Free Libraries. 

In the process, we noticed something about the distribution of LFLs around Denver. We found there were areas of Denver that had many fewer LFLs than others and some had none. Not surprisingly, because of the cost and maintenance involved, the need was clear in lower income communities.

In the interest of making sure Little Free Libraries spring up everywhere, we wanted to find a way to “plant some acorns” in neighborhoods that needed and expressed an interest for some support around book access.

This month, BookGive received both a grant and sponsorship funding to install Little Free Libraries in four Denver neighborhoods: Sun Valley, Valverde, Villa Park and West Colfax. All of these neighborhoods lie in areas of the city designated as book deserts where it is estimated that greater than 80% of households own fewer than 100 books. 

Little Free Library has supported similar collaborations in low income neighborhoods around the country. They reported that 88.3% of recipients provide books through their libraries to people who have little-to-no access otherwise, seeing an average of nine books exchanged per week. Three out of four people report that they read a book they normally would not have read because of a Little Free Library.

BookGive is working directly with the registered neighborhood organizations in Sun Valley, Valverde, Villa Park and West Colfax is to determine the best high-traffic locations for the new LFLs. Neighborhood leaders will coordinate the assembly and installation in ways that include as many local residents as possible, both physically and virtually.

We appreciate the financial support of the Denver Foundation Strengthening Neighborhoods Mini-Grant Program and Elizabeth Martinez, Associate Broker with Porchlight Real Estate Group. Thank you also to Little Free Library for offering us a discount on the purchase of the LFL units.

These four Denver neighborhoods already stand like strong oak trees with rich histories in our city. With the addition of LFLs where books are needed, BookGive commits to supporting these neighborhoods with free books for generations to come.

Installations will occur this Fall. You can follow the progress of this project on Facebook and Instagram.

Contributions to this blog post generously provided by BookGive volunteer writer, Phyllis Lundy. Click here to join our volunteer writing team.