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By NATHAN HOWELL | Special to the Reporter

PELHAM — Scout members of Troop 404 recently came together to help spread the joy of reading to others in the community by constructing a Little Free Library at the Pelham YMCA.

This project came together both as a way to provide free quality literature to students and others when they are not at school, and as an important community project for scouts in the troop.

“Our school library has wanted to have a community Little Free Library that we can point our students to when school is out. There are a couple already in Pelham, but we wanted ours to be in North Pelham where there wasn’t one close by,” said Pelham Park Middle School Librarian April Wallace.

Little Free Libraries are part of the largest book sharing program in the country, and became increasing popular over the last year as many people did not have access or funds for books.

After identifying this need, the scouts picked the Little Free Library as their project and got to work, which provided valuable skills in construction as well as emphasizing community and cooperation.

“We have several scouts from Troop 404 that attend Pelham Park Middle School and Pelham High School. The scouts needed to complete a community project and we needed a Little Library built, so we decided to work together,” Wallace explained. “They did an amazing job building a beautiful and functional library box. Not only did they build the library box, then they had to mount it on the post, dig a hole for the post, and cement it in the ground.”

The Little Free Library was constructed outside of the YMCA and will have books available for students and others who want to come by and pick up a free book. The school plans on adding more books to it soon.

“We also plan to have a book drive before the end of the school year to collect books to use to refill the library over the summer,” Wallace said. “Even though we are promoting it to our students, the library has books for all ages in it. Anyone can take a book to read and return or take it and keep it.”

After the project was completed, the Little Free Library was added to the national website and can be located at Littlefreelibrary.org.