NEWBERRY — Newberry County is slowly being filled with Little Free Libraries, a new one has been added to the growing list at 1307 Drayton Street.
Members of Mayer Memorial Lutheran Church came together to make the library (installed in October) — the idea to build the library started out as a suggestion.
“We have different teams at our church who are responsible for certain things. The team I’m on is called Witness and Service. A member of our congregation, who is a teacher, came to us and said she’d like to make a suggestion for our team, that was for us to set up a Little Free Library,” said Barbara Rister, Mayer Memorial Lutheran Church member.
After taking the suggestion back to the team, it was decided that they would move forward with creating a Little Free Library.
The next step, according to Rister, was finding out what they needed to do to make the idea come to fruition.
“We said let’s check out the website and see what we need to do. We did that and saw where you could purchase their little library boxes. As churches, we always try to do things a little on the cheap side — so a couple of us went on Pinterest and searched for Little Free Libraries,” she said.
Rister said that altogether the project cost less than $100.
Out of the numerous ideas found on Pinterest, the team came across pictures of different people using newspaper boxes as a library. They decided to go with this idea which would lead them to The Newberry Observer.
“Someone took a used newspaper box and we were like ‘oh, let’s go talk to The Newberry Observer’. A member of the team came to the office and told them what we wanted, and they sold us a used one that was in very good condition. Two members made the repairs and decorated it. Now it sits on the Drayton Street side of our church,” Rister said.
She added that the location of the library will also be beneficial to the youth in the neighborhood.
“Where it is seated is really good because the Drayton Street entrance is a covered porch. While we were working on this I discovered there were children who used that covered porch as their bus stop. So the bus picks them up and drops them off — the mothers are out there waiting for them, too,” she said.
Books in the library range from children’s books all the way to adults — only age appropriate books in fair condition are allowed in the library.
The books themselves are free and Rister said they will accept donations for the library. If you or someone you know has books they would like to donate, Rister said to call the church beforehand at 803-276-3163 and speak with the church secretary, who can accept the books.
Although it is not their goal, Rister said with the addition of the Little Free Library, this will maybe bring some youth into the church. She also recommends for anyone wanting to build a library and save money to search Pinterest for ideas.
“If we’re doing this and they enjoy it, maybe they’ll come to church one Sunday, but that wasn’t our primary goal. We kind of figured if we could pick up a member that way or get some kids interested in coming that would just be a goal bonus,” she said. “Highly recommend, instead of going online and buying the box — the minimum cost on their box is $350, which includes your registration fee. There are all kinds of fantastic ideas on Pinterest that people have done.”