Nashville first-graders open community library

It is said when people complete a job or mission, they have “put it in the books.”

Recently, the first-graders at Nashville Elementary “put one in the books” by putting books into the community during a community service project.

In the fall as part of West Holmes’ new Wit and Wisdom literacy curriculum, Nashville first-graders completed a literacy unit titled “A World of Books” in which they learned mobile libraries helped get books to children in remote locations around the world.

They also read about how communities can utilize little libraries to share books with one another and came up with the idea to create a lending library in Nashville as a legacy from the last first grade class of Nashville Elementary.

With the help of donations from students’ families, a retired teacher and a member of the community, the class was able to purchase a box to install outside of the Western Holmes Fire Station in town.

“Cory Angle with Right Angle Vinyl customized the box for our project, and kids brought in books to fill the library,” teacher Ashley Ogi said. “Last week the students took a walking field trip to place their books in their library, and it is now ready to serve the village of Nashville.”

Ogi said she initially did some research into building a miniature community library before realizing it would be far too much work. She then turned to the community, and Angle stepped in to play a key role after she purchased the necessary material.

The project was one that took much of the year to finally pay off, but it did, and the children were overjoyed to add personal books to the collection.

The box was installed late in the fall and sat dormant during the winter months, only to see the students take a reinvested interest once they were able to get out in good weather and walk to the miniature library to add their books.

Ogi said in addition to the books the children brought in, the school has others to add to the library as teachers go into downsizing mode so they don’t have to take materials to the new West Holmes K-5 building in the fall.

They made sure to add books for all ages so it can be utilized by the entire community.

Ogi said one of the books they read was about a boy who didn’t feel there was a need to learn to read, and one of her students spoke up and said perhaps someone will learn to read because of the books they placed.

“That was meaningful,” Ogi said. “You hope that this is something that stays in the community and sees plenty of use over the coming years. We were glad the community took such an interest in helping us out.”

Ogi said the school is grateful to all the donors, mainly Right Angle Vinyl, the Western Holmes Fire Station and Buckeye Deli, which treated the students to ice cream on the way back to school after they completed this community service project.