Returning a book she found at the laundromat got Laura Reeves to thinking about a book exchange for the communities in the RM of Stuartburn.  With libraries in Steinbach and St. Pierre being the closest options, getting books to read was difficult at times.

Reeves was familiar with the idea of little libraries and set out to work.  But not just one little library, she thought, 'wouldn't it be nice if we could have little libraries in every town.' She sought out permissions from local community leaders and found locations for where they could potentially be set up.

Knowing she couldn't do it alone, she approached Mr. Zarrazin, who at the time, was the industrial arts teacher at Shevchenko School in Vita. He thought it was a great idea and enlisted his students to build 5 little libraries for the project, one for each town.  

The little libraries are now at their locations but aren't completely finished as some will require a little more paint. The hope is that when some of the covid restrictions are lifted some community members will be able to participate by painting them.

The communities will be helping look after these little libraries, as Reeves said, 'they're for the community, by the community.'  And the communities have been using them already.  Reeves says she is surprised at how many books have shown up in the libraries in a short amount of time. 'the books are moving and they are cycling through, it's great to see.  Especially now with covid, and people are sitting at home and have pretty much exhausted their book supply, and they're getting desperate for reading material.'

Reeves has heard from people that are now gathering up books to share with the little libraries and is impressed at the diversity of books that are already available. When talking about the availability of books due to the little libraries, Reeves says "it gives meaning to the name book tour, now we can drive around to 5 different towns and collect books as we go or dropoff books as we go. I think it will be fun!'

The little libraries can be found in the following locations.

Sundown - at Sundown Park just south of town

Vita - under the Farmer's Market shelter

Gardenton - next to the community mailboxes

Stuartburn - next to the community mailboxes- coming soon.

Zhoda - next to the community mailboxes