Sandy Stollerman Photos
The Little Free Library at Dwight Substation is installed and open for business.
The Dwight police substation at 130 Edgewood Ave. is sandwiched between a school and the “A Walk In Truth” bookstore — two places where a kids can find a good story. Now substation, too, will be a hub that encourages the love of reading.
The FBI New Haven Citizens Academy Alumni Association has donated a Little Free Library to the substation. The little blue box and its books were installed out front on Thursday in an effort to encourage children and adults to spend more time between the pages of a book. The idea is that people can take a book for free and return with a book to give away. Rinse and repeat.
“The intent is to encourage kids (or adults) to take books, to make them feel comfortable around the substation and its staff,” Bob Caplan, who serves as the vice president of the academy alumni association, stated in an email.
Caplan and association Compliance Officer Robert Silvestri.
The alumni association volunteers with veterans and makes presentations to schools about the work of the FBI and topics such as cyberbullying. This is the third little library installed at a New Haven police substation. Little free libraries have been installed at the Newhallville substation and the alumni association installed one at Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hills substation. (Read about that here and here.) Two weeks ago, the association intalled a little library at the New London Police headquarters. Pete Reichard, a former New Haven police assistant chief, is the police chief there and “knows the value of community policing,” Caplan said.
Lt. John Healy, the district manager for the Dwight community, and his staff will help keep the little library stocked with the help of donations and books from New Haven Reads. Participants in Thursday’s installation included Healy and some of the officers who work in the area, local residents Sandy Stollerman, who took the pictures, and Pierre Merkl, who jazzed up the event by arriving in his 1961 Chrysler New Yorker. Staff from OR&L Construction handled the installation of the library, and it’s ready to go.