While walking home from an event in 2020, Orlando-area special education teacher Jacqulynn Wood Williams noticed a Little Free Library. Never really noticing it before, she was drawn to it for some reason.
Before long, she got the idea to construct her own Little Free Library. Woods sent a picture to her Florida Southern College classmate Brent E. Ellis (Gamma Pi–Florida Southern ’98) and asked if he could build a similar structure for her.
After thinking through the design and construction, Brent said he could do it.
“She knows I do a lot of woodworking, so it was a natural fit,” Ellis said.
With the increased cost of materials, Woods enlisted the help of the community and her Kappa Delta sorority sister Nicole Rutledge Regillo.
In a few weeks, their first Little Free Library went up in Bithlo Community Park. Before long, a total of four were built, installed, and filled mostly with children’s books donated by local individuals and civic organizations.
“My purpose is to make sure that every child has a booked to read,” Woods said.
More than 150,000 Little Free Libraries exist globally including in all 50 states, 115 countries, and all seven continents.
