03/16/2023
📘📚📕Hello, Thank you and Farewell....
I currently have 6 Royalty Reads Little Free Libraries in storage that have been either vandalized or damaged in the past 8 months. All of these were once housed in public park spaces in Evanston.
It has been incredibly disheartening to see these libraries being treated so horribly and it has broken my heart to have to take them down, leaving neighborhoods without free BIPOC literature access.
Honestly, I do not have the skills (or time & patience) to repair them and lack the funds to replace them.
I have thought long and hard about what my next move should be for Royalty Reads. It has weighed heavy on me, as I want nothing more than to serve my beloved community.
It was painful to come to this decision, but I have decided to step away from my original Royalty Reads Little Free Library dream...
I will no longer be installing and stewarding Royalty Reads Little Free Libraries.
Those libraries that I have installed at private residences will remain in place and stewardship has been transferred to those amazing homeowners. I send a huge "Thank you" to them for supporting me, their neighborhood community and Royalty Reads Little Free Library. I hope that their neighborhoods continue to have abundant access to BIPOC literature through their library stewardship!
If you are interested in taking possession of a damaged little free library and taking over stewardship of it in its original public park space, please reach out to me. I would love to arrange to drop one off to you with a load of books for your first book fill.
I have, however, decided to continue to take book donations and will book-bomb and mail book packages to little free libraries in the community. This still allows me to contribute to my dream of sharing BIPOC literature.
Thank you for your generous and constant support of Royalty Reads Little Free Libraries over the past 2 ½ years. You were the reason why it grew beyond my wildest summer daydream!
If you would like to continue to contribute to Royalty Reads Little Free Libraries as I shift to solely purchasing and distributing books, you may do so here:
https://linktr.ee/Royaltyreads?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=f586faba-768a-4a4e-9ac4-133609c3263e
Thank you again.
With enormous gratitude,
Tracy
