Little Free Library Partnership with Marietta City Schools and Marietta Reads!

The Little Free Library article in the The Rotarian, March 2014 inspired us to make it happen in our community, where there is significant socioeconomic disparity. To bridge this gap and provide access to books at a point when it is critical for children to learn to read, we created a Little Free Library Partnership with Marietta City Schools.

2014 was our 95th Anniversary serving the community and also, our 9th year helping with Marietta READS (a program specific to Marietta). Each of the eight elementary schools received an assembled Little Free Library from us. Staff and students decorated them in various themes, with logos for Marietta READS and The Rotary Club of Marietta. This partnership is an effective way to promote literacy, while having a long-term, physical manifestation of our continued, strong support of the community.

We are thankful for the $2,000 District Grant that helped make this happen, which was used to purchase and ship kits from Little Free Library. Additional funds from the Marietta Rotary Foundation Fund were used to install the libraries.

Over 80 Rotarians participated through book donations, construction, coordination, installation, stocking. There is tremendous, ongoing impact: Over 4,000 students attend these schools annually and have access and weekly effort is required to keep them filled!

Social media page promotion (Club, individual, community) and The Bright Side and the District 6900 Newsletter helped to reach thousands more. This long-term, sustainable project will promote literacy and help the community in many ways for years to come.