Auburn student builds, donates little libraries to elementary schools

Christopher Sciria
AECSD Public Information Specialist

Auburn High School student Mitchell Homick knew early on what he was going to do for his Eagle Scout service project.

Homick, a Boy Scout in Troop 21, which is led by Scoutmaster John Hai, has spent the last year building little libraries that he donated to the Auburn Enlarged City School District’s elementary schools. He also did two for the town of Throop, one at Sawyer Park and the other at the Throop Sports Complex.

“I always thought about this for my Eagle project,” said Homick, who is going to be a senior in September, “but Mrs. Ridley, who works here at Owasco, was saying how for Throop, they were thinking about little libraries and I was thinking about the idea so that worked out and then it extended to the school district from that.” 

Little libraries are spots where children can take a book and leave one in a way to foster a fondness for reading.

“It just has been quite the process watching him as a little Cub (Scout) all the way to Eagle and that he's giving back to the elementary schools and his education has been so important to him,” said Mitchell’s mother Taryn, who is a teacher assistant at Owasco. “That's a huge thing. The way it worked out was he came to me and he said, ‘I think I want to do little libraries as my project’ and I said, ‘oh goodness, that's a huge undertaking.’ The next day, I just happened to be at work and Mrs. Ridley said, ‘Do you know anybody who needs to do an Eagle (Scout) project or a Girl Scout project and wants to do little libraries?’ It just kind of came full circle because Miss Ridley was his second-grade teacher and the way she read to her students.”

For one of the little libraries, Homick refurbished an old newspaper coin box that was donated to Owasco Elementary School. He wasn’t able to find any more boxes so he built shelving units for the other schools.
 

“There's only one box that we could refurbish, the other boxes were not there,” he said. “So we had to do the shelves for it, but the boxes are meant to take a book, leave a book.”

“When the project initially started, we were under the impression that all the schools had the boxes,” Taryn Homick said, “and then as we contacted all the schools, they said, we got rid of them. He improvised and came up with something that the schools could still take if they wanted it and we were able to take this one and refurbish it. The scouts are thrifty. It's one of their pledges to be thrifty.”

Homick started the project last summer and delivered the shelves in March. With classes ending in June, he was able to finish up the last ones.

Mitchell said the books have been donated by teachers and other community members and he’s optimistic that it will spur students to read more.

“I hope that people actually end up using them because I never used to like reading,” he said, “but in high school, I picked it up. So I just hope more people read.” 

“It has been quite the undertaking and watching it just take off from the ground up has been extraordinary because it is definitely a huge project,” Taryn Homick said, “and watching him oversee this entire project has been great because those are skills you definitely need to take into adulthood.”