INNISFAIL – The town’s Aspen Heights neighbourhood is now part of a world-wide free book movement.
It’s a global initiative designed to create a bigger and better sense of community, and to help rid neighbours of the prolonged COVID blues.
Led by Brad Watson, who moved to the neighbourhood in 2017 from Calgary, there is now a homemade free library by the community mail box.
Folks can now just take a nice spring walk to the Aspen Heights Free Library and find a book, take it home and read it, bring it back later, or they can donate one, two or three for their neighbours to enjoy.
“It is really free and open for folks to use,” said Watson.
The 63-year-old retired oil and gas pipeline manager, who grew in town before moving to Calgary, has long been an avid reader and came up with the idea for the neighbourhood library partly due to the ongoing COVID isolation issue.
“During the early part of the pandemic I was going through books like crazy and going out to buy them. It can be expensive,” said Watson. “I thought, ‘geez you know I got good books. The neighbours have got good books’ and I thought maybe we can get something going here and exchange those resources around.”
Watson recalled when he was in Calgary, he lived a block and a half from a free library exchange and how refreshing and easy it was for him to just wander down the road to drop off a book and head home.
“I thought it was such a great idea,” he said, adding earlier this spring he thought having a free library would be a nice amenity to have, “something accessible to the bigger community.”
With that in mind and his familiarity with the acclaimed Little Free Library organization, he got into action.
The mission of the global non-profit organization, which won the 2020 World Literacy Award from the World Literacy Foundation - is to build community, inspire readers, and expand book access for all through its world-wide network of volunteer-led little libraries.
The organization has supported the creation of more than 100,000 Little Free Libraries in more than 100 countries and shares 42 million books every year.
About a month ago Watson went to Red Deer and purchased a used child’s playhouse, which measured about 32 ins. wide, three feet high, and a foot deep, for $50. He fixed it up with new pieces of wood and paint.
It was soon transformed into a miniature neighbourhood library, one that keeps books safe and secure from the elements.
From there, neighbours Tasha Busch and Skylar Tooth offered their services to help organize the new neighbourhood library. The lower section is for kids’ books and the more advanced ones on the top shelves are for adults.
“We didn’t want a huge number of rules around it. We just really want to spread that love of reading,” said Watson.
On April 16, Watson was proud to announce the Aspen Heights Free Library has registered with the global organization under the charter number 122525. The Innisfail free library is even on the Little Free Library World Map for the whole world to see.
The same day Watson, Busch and Tooth went to install the Aspen Heights Free Library beside the neighbourhood mail box, which had the seal of approval from the town.
Mission accomplished. But is another neighbourhood in town next?
“Not immediately but I think I would definitely be interested or willing to help others who want to do something along the same lines,” he said, noting the Little Free Library organization does sell kits and there are “tons and tons of great ideas” online to create them.
“I would love to see it spring up in more communities within the town.”
For more information on the Little Free Library organization go online to littlefreelibrary.org.
