Mr. John Versage’s 6th grade Career and Technical Education students recently wrapped up work on a “Little Free Library” that will soon adorn the faculty room in Attica Middle School!
“I’m an avid reader and know a lot of my co-workers are as well so I had the idea to start up a little free library for staff,” said Melanie Nowak, a teacher in the middle school. “Since I’m in charge of the faculty fund that collects money from returned pop cans and snack sales, I told John that we could use some of those funds to help pay for the materials to build the little free library.”
Versage, who built a little free library for the 5th/6th grade wing a few years back, thought it would make for a good project for his 6th graders. His CTE students cut the lumber for the library, glued and nailed the pieces together, sanded it down and then painted it.
“For the painting, they told me the colors, I went to the store, bought the purple and the punk and they went to town. Designed it all and that’s what they came up with,” said Versage. “It probably took three weeks on and off.”
The “Little Free Library” movement began in 2009 when Todd Bol of Wisconsin designed and built a tiny library in the style of a one-room schoolhouse in memory of his mother, a teacher and lover of books. Bol put the library on a post in his front yard, filled it with books and invited neighbors and community members to borrow them.
According to Little Free Library, the non-profit Bol would go on to found, there are now more than 175,000 little free libraries in 121 countries that, collectively, have shared some 400 million books.
Attica’s new little library will soon be placed in the faculty room in the Middle School - just as soon as Versage can secure a base on which to mount it.
Photos courtesy of John Versage
Mr. John Versage’s 6th grade CTE students are pictured painting the little free library they built in class. The library will soon be placed in the Attica Middle School faculty room.