Photo courtesy of June Mathews.
Hampton Inn employees Cherelle Johnson, left, and Stephanie Cook help maintain the hotel’s Little Free Library, a joint project with the Trussville Noon Rotary Club.
The Trussville Noon Rotary Club is teaming up with Hampton Inn Birmingham/Trussville to provide a Little Free Library in the hotel’s lobby as a service to guests and other visitors to the area. The project was suggested by Hampton manager Dave Patel, also a member of the Noon Rotary.
“Providing a source of reading enjoyment to people who come through our doors is a way of serving not only our hotel community but the community around us,” Patel said.
The hotel staff and Noon Rotary members will maintain the library and provide books for the taking. Patrons may choose to leave a book or not.
While several adults have discovered the Hampton Little Free Library and taken advantage of it, it has also found an audience in kids who stay at the hotel.
“Children have been reading books at breakfast, but we’ve also noticed them reading some of our books at other times of the day,” project coordinator Ann Layne said. “Literacy is one of Rotary International’s main concerns, so a Little Free Library is a wonderful way of supporting that cause.”
Ever since the first Little Free Library was established in 2009, the “take a book, share a book” exchange program has provided more than three million books to people looking for something good to read. The libraries come in all shapes and sizes (the Hampton Inn “branch” is a little green house), and those registered with the Little Free Library organization are included on a worldwide list of Little Free Libraries.
– Submitted by June Mathews.
