A Little Free Library can spring up anywhere. On Memorial Day weekend, one was put up by the Heather and Tyler Schmidt family at 1305 E. Zingler Ave. in Shawano.
“We volunteered,” said Heather Schmidt, a kindergarten teacher at Hillcrest Primary School. “We thought our location is great, and there’s a lot of kids in our neighborhood.”
The library was built by Bob Echtner, father of Terry Wiley, an occupational therapist who works at Hillcrest Primary School.
Echtner likes to do woodworking, had seen other little libraries and decided to make one.
The Schmidt family will maintain the library, replacing books when necessary with books that were donated.
The Little Free Library movement started in 2009 in Hudson, when Todd Bol built a model of a one-room schoolhouse and stocked it with free books in honor of his mother, who was a teacher. Encouraged by friends and neighbors, he built and gave away several more.
The idea grew into a national and then worldwide movement. There are now about 25,000 Little Free Libraries across the U.S., with more being built.
In May 2012 Little Free Library officially became a Wisconsin nonprofit organization.
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