Pierce County Girl Scout Kate Joiner recently cut the ribbon on a Little Free Library for Laura S. Walker State Park.
Kate lives with her parents Clint and Ginger and brother, Will, on-site at Laura Walker. Her father is assistant manager of the park and Kate has been an active member of Pierce County Troop 3014 for the last few years. When brainstorming ideas for earning her bronze award, the highest honor for a junior scout, Kate’s love of reading led the way.
Initially, they googled ideas for the community service project. Settling on a little library, which operates on the honor system of “take a book leave a book”, they then took to Facebook to see if anyone had something they could repurpose for the container. Vicki Kuhbander of Ware County 4-H had an old newspaper vending machine that seemed ideal and gave it to the Joiners. The same machine had once been the basis of Sami Jo Kuhbander’s own silver project.
It took about eight hours over the course of a few days, plus plenty of primer and paint, to rehab the old paper vending machine. Kate’s mother, Ginger, found a sign online to affix to the front of it, and is in the process of helping Kate register the location with the Little Free Library organization, so it can be easily found online.
Ginger had suggested possibly doing a different spin on the little lending library using puzzles, but Kate insisted on books. Her favorites are the Harry Potter series, but the new tiny library is full of selections for young and old, donated from a variety of sources, including the Joiner family’s own books and donations from family friend Stacy Lewis.
Laura Walker Park has two other tiny libraries, but they are located in the campground area and by the cottages respectively. Kate’s new addition is out front of the park’s Interpretive Center, which her father says is the base of operations for the park naturalists. This location makes it accessible to park visitors not staying overnight.
Now, visitors wanting to spend some time in the shade or by the lake with a good book need look no further than the Interpretive Center to find a book to help them while away the hours.
With the recent wind down of Pierce County Troop 30146, Kate will soon be going “Juliette”, which means doing mostly solo, self-directed projects and activities, as a member of Troop 30256 out of Brunswick, but says she looks forward to further community service projects in the future.
