If you’ve wondered along Church Street in the last few months you may have noticed the Uniting Church’s Street Library.
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A home for novels and DVDs, the community exchange program welcomes everyone to come along and take part in this wonderful local outreach concept.
Affiliated with the national Street Library of Australia, the Uniting Church’s Street Library is the only one within the City.
There are more than 370 Street Library’s in NSW, according to the national Street Library website.
Built by Dubbo local and ex-farmer David Pattinson in October last year, the youth group at Uniting Church, Pray, Eat, Play (PEP), came up with the idea to start the Street Library in Dubbo and even painted it.
Unfortunately the Dubbo Street Library has had two fires. After the first fire it was extensively damaged and was repaired and repainted by PEP.
The Street Library is checked for books and DVDs and is restocked weekly by the group of volunteers at Uniting Church.
Uniting Church volunteer Carolyn Sharp encouraged everyone within the community to grab a book as they’re going past and put another one in, or sit down and have a read on one of the many benches the Church has around the grounds.
“We often have people coming in to have their lunch or to make a call...and we encourage people to be here and use it,” she said.
The Uniting Church are also thinking of putting some brochures in the Street Library that showcase what events are happening within the City.
“It’s still a work in process.. but it’s been something that the young people have wanted to do, a way they can help and be a part of the community,” Ms Sharp said.
Don’t worry if you’ve already got novels at home and are worried they might be mixed up, because the Uniting Church place stickers in each of the books to ensure you know where they come from.
“Anyone walking past, it could be people working in the area, or visitors to the City, grab a book and read it,” Ms Sharp said.
Elaine Drummond, Uniting Church volunteer, praised the PEP group for all of their efforts.
“We just felt it would be an outreach area to the Dubbo community,” she said. “We’re delighted.”
“Not everyone is replacing a book, but that’s fine with us. We’ll just keep replacing the stock.”
Ms Drummond said she would love the Dubbo community to come and take advantage of the Street Library.
“It’s our gift to them,” she said.
To find out more information on Street Library please visit streetlibrary.org.au