What happens to your book after you donate it?

Your donations help fill our Pop-Up Library, which gives away books all around the community.

When you place a book or two in our donations box—thank you, by the way—do you ever wonder what happens to it?

Where does it go? Will anyone ever read your book again?

The answer is your book could go to a lot of different places; but, wherever it goes, that book is helping someone.

We give a lot of donated books away. We firmly believe everyone should have access to books. If that means giving away a book that we might have sold at a book sale, we’re fine with that.

We’ve given away hundreds of books during My Community Monday where we donate books to local nonprofits, including schools, churches, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Deepwood, Lake Metropolitan Housing Authority, Hannah’s Home, Boy and Girl Scouts, and more.

The books you donate help fill the Little Free Libraries in parks, restaurants and businesses all over the city. We also give them away at city pools and at Mentor Headlands Beach so people never lack for a good summer read.

Your donations also fill the Pop-Up Library that gives away books at CityFest, Beachfest, schools and more.

And many of the donations we receive are sold during the Friends of the Mentor Public Library book sales at our Read House. In turn, that money goes to support library events and programming. The money that pays for an author talk or buys supplies for children’s programs often begins with the book you donate.

Furthermore, thanks to donations from people like you, we’ve given away more than 10,000 books this year.

And that doesn’t happen without your donations, so thank you! Thank you for your support, your donations, and for making us your community library.

Diane Frangos picks donations from the shelves of our Read House for the Girl Scouts.

Our newest Little Free Library location

We dropped off our newest Little Free Library at Memorial Middle School on Friday.

Short post today to celebrate our newest Little Free Library at Memorial Middle School.

We love kids, we love books and we love giving books to kids; so having a Little Free Library at a school is a delight for us. Thanks to Principal Dudziak for making it happen!

This is our 16th Little Free Library—17th if you count the one we take with us during our Flash Libraries. People often tell us how much they like them and thank us for them; but, honestly, it's we who should be thankful.

We're thankful to all our partners who host them, thankful to all our volunteers who make sure they stay filled, thankful to everyone who donates books, and thankful to everyone who takes a book to read. Without all of you, our Little Free Libraries would just be handsome blue bird houses.

Never stop reading!

Coming Soon to a Park, Pool & Bike Path Near You

Meet one of our Little Free Libraries.

You're going to see more of them soon at parks, pools and bike paths around Mentor and Mentor-on-the-Lake.

The idea behind the Little Free Library is simple but brilliant.

We can call it "brilliant" without sounding arrogant because it wasn't our idea. The idea came from Todd Bol -- a Wisconsin man who wanted to honor his mother, a school teacher and avid reader. It has since spread to all 50 states and 40 countries.

LFLs work like community book exchanges. When you see one of these around the community, you can take a book from it, read it, keep it if you want and bring it back if you don't.

If you want, you can donate a book simply by leaving it inside one of our LFLs.

Couldn't be easier. You don't even need a library card. (But you really should have a library card so you have access to all the other cool stuff we offer.)

The books we use to stock the LFLs aren't part of the library's collection either. Most of them are donated.

If you are a community member, organization or business and would like to steward one of the libraries, we welcome your participation. To be clear, stewards wouldn't have to donate money or books. They would have to just give a little of their time to make sure the LFLs stay stocked.

We have plenty of books for restocking purposes available at our Read House. Stewards would just have to pick up books from the Read House and take them to their LFLs.

And where are these Little Free Libraries going to be, you may ask.

All over! We want to make sure that they are where you are. That way they're readily accessible.

So here's a list of places where you'll see LFLs very soon:

Mentor-on-the-Lake locations

• Overlook Beach Park (corner of Reynolds and Salida roads)
• Adult soccer fields at MOL City Hall (Andrews Road)
• Mentor Beach Park (Andrews Road)

Mentor locations

• Mentor Dog Park (Hopkins Road)
• Mentor Lagoons
• Wildwood Cultural Center & Park (Little Mountain Road)
• Morton Community Park pool (Rosemary Lane off Corduroy Road, Headlands)
• Eleanor B. Garfield Park pool (Mentor Avenue)
• Eleanor B. Garfield Park playground
• Civic Center Park pool (Hopkins Road)
• Civic Center Park amphitheater
• Edward R. Walsh Park (Bellflower Road)
• Commemorative Rose Garden (corner of Mentor Avenue & Hart Street)

(Special thanks go to the cities of Mentor and Mentor-on-the-Lake for all their cooperation.)

If you are interested in stewarding one of these locations, please call Sue Fram for more information at 255-8811 ext. 233.

So those are our Little Free Libraries. They're coming to your neighborhood soon. We hope you love them as much as we do.

They're just one more way we're trying to serve you.