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WINDSOR

Windsor Elementary School held a ribbon cutting ceremony on Monday afternoon for a “little free library” built by students in Edith Scott’s first grade class. The ceremony was held at the Clyde’s Dale Mobile Home Community, where the library is now located.

According to Scott, her students came up with the idea for the library in February after the class toured several local libraries and began researching ways to share their love of reading with the community. The students were responsible for choosing a design for the library, building it and painting it. Windsor Elementary Instructional Coach Julie Branch and Reading Coach Haley Cooprider also assisted the students with the project.

The school purchased a kit for the two-shelf design the students chose from littlefreelibrary.org, a nonprofit organization with the mission of starting free neighborhood book exchanges.

The idea was to store adult books on the top shelf and children’s books, including the ones the students had written, on the bottom shelf. The students also had some say in the selection of Clyde’s Dale, located approximately 1.5 miles north of Windsor’s corporate border, as a location for the library.

Scott explained that her students had wanted to put the library somewhere where children might not have the same access to books as those who lived closer to the Windsor branch of Blackwater Regional Library on Duke Street. The library has been assigned charter No. 69619 and its location will be registered at littlefreelibrary.org.

“We installed it yesterday and someone had already added a book to it,” Scott said. “We’d like to thank the owners of Clyde’s Dale for letting us put it here.”

The students will again present about their little free library project during the Windsor Elementary Expo scheduled for May 9 at 6:30 p.m. in the school.