Eagle Scout project brings free books to Stow parks

Stow’s parks have two new Little Free Libraries, thanks to Eagle Scout candidate Ben Ehrhardt, a Cuyahoga Falls resident and rising senior at Woodridge High School in Peninsula.

Community members are welcome to take or leave books in the Little Free Libraries at Meadowbrook Lake Park on Hudson Drive and Heather Hills Park in a neighborhood off Darrow Road.

Like all Scouts aiming to earn the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America program, 17-year-old Ehrhardt needed to complete a service project. When it came time to choose one, he thought immediately of Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library, a place he frequented “practically every day” as a child while his mother tutored students.

Ehrhardt remembers his mother picking him and his siblings up from Holy Family School and taking them around the corner to the library, where he’d chat with the librarians, peer into the fish and turtle tanks, and explore the books in the stacks when he wasn’t doing homework.

“I realized I wanted to do something for the staff at that library, since I grew up there,” he said.

Ehrhardt got the ball rolling on his project last fall, when he contacted outreach librarian Amanda Rome. She suggested the community could use another Little Free Library like the ones SMFPL maintains at Brust Park in Munroe Falls and Laundry Time Laundromat on Fishcreek Road.

Ehrhardt loved the idea.

“Just going to the library, browsing the books, and exploring different topics has shaped my life, so I wanted to give other people that experience — maybe people who wouldn’t visit the library otherwise,” he said.

Stow Mayor John Pribonic enthusiastically agreed to the project, but with a suggestion: “Instead of building one little library, how about two?”

Pribonic wanted to try installing little libraries in two types of locations: One at a bigger park most residents access by car (Meadowbrook Lake), and one at a smaller neighborhood park that residents access by bike or on foot (Heather Hills).

Once Ehrhardt got the OK from the city and the library, he began the eight-month long process of collecting donations from family and friends, ordering the mini-library kits and official plaques, assembling the structures with his troop members, and painting the libraries with the help of his classmates in art club.

Between the mini-library kits, the plaques, and shipping, it cost about $750 to build the two little free libraries.

Ehrhardt said this process taught him just how much attentiveness — and patience — goes into coordinating a project that involves multiple people and many details. For instance, he had to select a model big enough to fit picture books and a wooden post to hold the library that could withstand precipitation and wind.

Getting the libraries painted was its own mini-project. Ehrhardt spent multiple study halls coordinating with an art teacher to figure out who could help, where they could paint, how he could get supplies, and what color scheme to select.

Ehrhardt ended up choosing an orange, teal and neutral light gray color scheme for the Heather Hills little library. The blue gradient design on the sides of the Meadowbrook Lake structure came from a packet of examples of Little Free Libraries that Rome sent him. Ehrhardt and his family also re-painted the Little Free Library at Brust Park.

SMFPL outreach librarians bring about 30 books per month to each existing Little Free Library and anticipate doing the same for the new ones, Rome said.

“The response I’ve heard on social media [from Heather Hills residents] has been overwhelmingly positive,” Pribonic said. “They’re excited because they feel the Little Free Library adds great value to our neighborhood, and a special touch to our city.”

Having a Little Free Library in a neighborhood can be life-changing for a child, Pribonic said. “We’ve got one in our neighborhood, and my grandson gets very excited for the routine of walking down, picking a book, and then coming home to read. My wife’s a second-grade school teacher, and she’ll tell you the kids that read with their families do excellent in school.”

More than earning the rank of Eagle Scout, which less than 5% of Scouts earn due to the major time commitment it requires, Ehrhardt said he is proud to give back to the community that was instrumental in raising him.

“It feels great to make books — and the experiences that come with them — accessible to more people,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Two Stow parks now home for Eagle Scout project of Little Free Libraries