Gabi Davila is one of several Teacher Education students who helped stock Lehigh Career & Technical Institute’s Little Free Library.

SCHNECKSVILLE, Pa. — Thanks to a surprising discovery in the school’s Distribution Center, Lehigh Career & Technical Institute has its very own Little Free Library.

The library is stocked with titles ideal for high school readers, located in LCTI’s A-wing and open for borrowing every day class is in session. 

Teacher Education instructor Kathy Khanuja was running an errand on campus late last spring when she spotted the long-forgotten library tucked away in the Distribution Center. She inquired about the library, and Supply Chain Management & Logistics Technology teacher Vicki Lynch agreed to let her have it.

Khanuja tasked her students with finding books to fill the library, and they met the challenge with novels like “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” “Out of My Mind,” “Where the Crawdads Sing” and more. When school began last week, the Little Free Library was ready to go.

This is how we serve!

LCTI previously partnered with First Book to store and distribute books. During the 2019-2020 school year, Supply Chain Management students participated in a First Book contest and won, Lynch said. The prize was a Little Free Library.

Lynch had tentative plans to put the library in LCTI’s Academic Center, but then the pandemic began, schools closed, and priorities changed, she explained.  “We were going to place it in the Academic Center, but then COVID hit, and we decided to wait. It has been sitting down here ever since. When [Ms. Khanuja] saw it and showed interest, I said, ‘Take it.'”

Little Free Library is a Minnesota-based nonprofit dedicated to expanding book access through a global network of volunteer-led book exchange boxes and other initiatives. The nonprofit has more than 200,000 libraries in 128 countries that boast 500 million books shared.