Freedom Area Middle School has started a Little Lending Library for the students and its local community.

In the spring of 2014, Mrs. Cindy Zeigler introduced the idea of the mobile library to Ms. Sara Heiman and Mr. David Badamo after finding inspiration from an article she found in a local newspaper. The main idea stemmed from the fact that there aren’t any community libraries within the district.

“Give a book. Take a book,” Zeigler said. The concept of the Little Lending Library is that for every book that a person borrows, they leave a book behind for someone else to take in the future.

“There [are] none in Freedom, none in Conway and there is no library in New Sewickley, so if you are a resident of the school district you have to go out of the district,” Zeigler said.

At the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, the mobile library plan was put into action. Badamo’s seventh grade advanced technology class constructed the mobile library during the first nine weeks of the 2014-2015 school year. This class consisted of six students, who all had a hand in building the library.

“The first one will be positioned right outside of the [middle school] and administration building, so it will be supervised,” Badamo said.
For the making of the first library, the school was sponsored by the Freedom Area Education Association and used no outside money for the making of the first building.

The class plans on building more Little Lending Libraries to put around the local community. The goal is to place a mobile library in Freedom, Conway and New Sewickley, in addition to the one that is to be placed at the Middle School. They have considered placing one of the libraries at Green Valley Park, for the New Sewickley location, but the other locations are not yet decided.

Mariah McGlothlin assisted in the brainstorming of the project. Her idea was to hold a design contest to have the students choose how they want their library to look. The thought behind doing so is to get the students involved at all age levels, so that everyone will be in support of this project.

One of the biggest ideas behind the project was the concept that if the community takes to using this mobile library, an actual library could come to fruition in the district.

“Maybe we can start a movement to get a library back in this district, because I think we need one and those other things down the road can be met,” Zeigler said.

The class is getting ready to start the building of the next mobile library. Badamo is projected to have at least four of the libraries made by the start of the 2015-2016 school year.