An elementary school student from Fort Worth has been hosting a summer block party of sorts.
Penelope Droege, 10, is not offering music and a pool, but rather books for kids in and around her community.
"This is our summer garage library and we’re just trying to get people to read over the summer. So we have a bunch of our books from our house and our dad’s classroom," Penelope said.
Her dad is a fourth grade teacher at Kay Granger Elementary School in the Northwest ISD. In fact, some of the books at the garage library are from his classroom. They are books Penelope said would have just sat in the school all summer long with no one to read them. The rest of the books were donated or taken straight from the libraries of the four Droege children.
This all started because Penelope wanted to keep busy this summer.
"I was trying to find a job to do over the summer and I was thinking of dog walking, but we don’t even walk our own dog," Penelope said.
Since that didn’t really make much sense, she and her mom came up with the garage library.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday of the summer, for select hours each day, the garage door is open.
The library is complete with library cards and the old school check-out system. Visitors write their name in the old school borrowing card inside the book and then they have a generous two weeks to return.
"I think the biggest part for me is that you’re creating life-long learners. That’s even when you get out of school that you should be reading and curious," said Penelope’s dad Brian Droege. "But also, what other programs there are. The libraries have summer reading programs and a lot of the book stores have summer reading programs. So we want to get them those materials so that they can log their reading."
To think, this summer book party is helping a 10-year-old and her siblings, write their own story of something good.
