Springtown Elementary PTA installs Free Little Libraries

Springtown Elementary PTA installs Free Little Libraries

Project to encourage reading at home, honor school librarian

SPRINGTOWN — In her 13th year as an educator, Springtown Elementary School librarian Velvet Barker hopes to help kids find books that they want to read as well as encourage families to read together as often as they can.

Springtown Elementary’s Parent Teacher Association has found a way to aid that goal.

The PTA took two newspaper vending boxes (donated by The Tri-County Reporter) and turned them into Free Little Libraries, which will be placed outside Springtown Elementary where kids can take a book home with them to keep it or eventually trade it in for another book.

PTA President Kelli Apple and other PTA members painted the newspaper boxes and designed them to look like a red and white barn. They also made a collage of book covers to paste onto the old newspaper boxes.

Apple said the Free Little Libraries are aimed at influencing kids to read physical copies of books as opposed to digital ones.

“These libraries belong to all kids in Springtown,” Apple said. “We hope that they will bring joy, connection and a love of reading to all Springtown ISD students. We are a Title I district, and we hope to be able to provide families with reading time together that they might not otherwise have.”

Apple also said the project is meant to honor Barker’s work at the school.

“I know she's influenced a lot of kiddos,” Apple said.

Barker took a nontraditional path to her career in education. Though she took some college classes after finishing high school, Barker went back to school at an older age after her husband died. With a finished degree in hand, she began teaching kindergarten and first grade at Springtown Elementary. Then, she earned her master’s degree and became the school’s librarian.

Barker loves kids and said being the librarian allows her to educate all children in the school as opposed to being limited to a certain grade and class.

“I just thought that sounded like another way that I could just build relationships with kids,” she said. “That's something I love. The reading is there, too, but building that relationship is important to me.”

Barker has only ever worked as an educator at Springtown Elementary School and has found that campus is a good fit for her. She recalled becoming particularly close with the staff after having been diagnosed with an illness during her first year at the school.

“These people just rallied around me, and so this is my other family,” Barker said. “These people I work with, along with all the kids, we've become a family when we're here.”

Springtown Elementary School’s library is a place where kids can discover books they like, be creative in a makerspace, research, and feel seen and safe, Barker said. She also strives to ensure that all children are represented in the library books.

Reading is not limited to the library, and Barker would like families to read together, even if it’s only a couple nights a week.

“I know we're really busy,” she said. “I know we have lots of technology in our hands, but just simply opening up our library books and reading together at night, talking about the book – to me, modeling with your children is such an important part of helping our children learn to read and building that stamina, even. And so even if you're just reading to them at night or reading with them at night, I think that's so important.”

Barker said she feels honored by the PTA’s recognition of her with the Free Little Libraries and said the project may allow kids to discover new books that aren’t available in the school library. She praised the PTA’s support of the school and their efforts to reach out to the neighborhood.

“Our community and our parents and our school – it’s a partnership,” Barker said. “I think that's how kids become successful.”

madelyn edwards | tri-county reporter