Local church plans ribbon-cutting

BY NOELLE OLSON SHOREVIEW EDITOR

Peace - A United Methodist Community Church (Peace) is bringing a Little Free Library to the community.

Administrative Assistant Cindy Tidball and Bonnie Clebecheck, members of Peace’s COSROW group (Commission on the Status and Role of Women), volunteered to chair this endeavor and have brought it to fruition.

“The Little Free Library was an idea that took root when two ideas merged,” Tisdale explained. “The first was that, as found in a study several years ago, people in our Shoreview community were not aware that Peace was even here. The second was that Peace, being all about ‘reconciling and growing for everyone,’ believes in (among other things) free access to a wide variety of books as an agent for furthering literacy, education and intelligent citizenship.”

She added, “The Little Free Library is an outreach tool that tells people who we are, because in addition to books that find their way into our library from community members, we will also ‘seed’ it with books featuring authors and characters from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, genders, ages, abilities, (and) interests — including books often banned in schools and libraries across the country.”

A ribbon-cutting for the Little Free Library (LFL) will be held after the 10 a.m. worship service on Sunday, May 21, at Peace, 5050 Hodgson Road in

Shoreview.

“At the end of the service (approximately 11 a.m.) everyone will be asked to take a book from the Little Free Library collection as they leave the sanctuary and move out the doors facing Hodgson Road,” said Quita Bertelsen, lay leader. “The Little Free Library is going to be planted in the gardens along this entrance. There will be a reception of cookies, punch, Little Free Library/Peace bookmarks and balloons for the kids.”

Bertelsen noted that a member of Peace built the Little Free Library, and others designed the bookmarks, decals and stamp and are putting it in the ground. “Many hands have helped to make the Little Free Library a reality,” she said.

“We want to make sure that youth in our community have access to books where they are going to see themselves represented, whether that’s the LGBTQ+ community, the Indigenous community or our black and brown members of our community,” Pastor Jason Steffenhagen said. “We really want to make sure that kids see themselves and hear stories they can relate to. As a white male, it was easy for me to grow up reading books that I could see myself in.”

There are currently over 950 titles on Peace’s list of books it wants to include in the Little Free Library from a wide variety of sources.

“One family from Peace is donating 20 books to our Little Free Library in honor of a relative who was a librarian,” Bertelsen said. “Other individuals have chosen a book from our wishing tree, purchased and donated it to the Little Free Library.”

Each book in the Little Free Library will be stamped with “Always a Gift, Never for Sale” with the Little Free Library logo and Peace’s name and address.

Peace welcomes anyone who would like to donate money, buy specific books from its list or donate gently used books to the Little Free Library.

“Not only do we want to initially put books in there that are well-rounded and represent our community, but we want to have a bank of books with diversity in the book titles,” Steffenhagen said. “We want our library to have a distinctness to it. Not just whatever gets put in it from the community, which we encourage, but we also want to ensure that we’re keeping some of the books in there that they might not find elsewhere.”

For more information, go to peaceumc.com.

Shoreview Editor Noelle Olson can be reached by emailing shoreviewnews@ presspubs.com or calling 651-407-1229.