Four-year-old Elijah Fuller was the first official borrower from the new street library launched by Joey’s House Early Education Centre (JHEEC) in Warlters Street, last Monday morning (11 April).

Elijah was joined by his mum Tara Fuller, Angie Hazleton-Kelly from Community Place with Port Macquarie Hastings Council/Port Library and Joey’s House Centre Manager, Tanya Tucker, at the launch of the colourful street library box, which was painted and decorated by children from the Navigators room at Joey’s House.

The purpose of the street library is to provide opportunities to connect with the wider community and to encourage a love of literacy for life.

“The COVID pandemic affected community opportunities for connection so our team brainstormed new ways we could do this with our local community moving forward,” says Tanya.

“Our new Early Childhood Teacher, Josie came up with the street library idea and spoke with Angie at Port Library who helped bring the idea to fruition by giving us the raw wooden box.”

“We then involved the children from the Navigators Room in designing artwork for the box, which is painted in the same colours as the front of our Joey’s House building.”

The children thought they should paint themselves on the box “to show everyone how to bring their books here to swap and read new ones.”

“We’d love to see families visit our street library during school holidays to find some new reading material – it’s a fun and inexpensive outing everyone can enjoy!” Tanya concluded.

The street library, which is located outside Joey’s House in Warlters Street, has adults’ fiction books and cookbooks as well as children’s books to borrow, swap or keep.