Freya is recognised for her fantastic street library idea
Concept helps beat COVID blues
CRAIG WILLIAMS
An Eaglesham woman has been recognised in Parliament after starting a ‘street library’ for people to use during lockdown.
Freya Young started Eaglesham Street Library in June with the help of donations from locals.
The novel idea is to offer onstreet borrowing on weekends from outside the doors of a local community hall.
Having initially come up with the concept to alleviate boredom for locals during the coronavirus pandemic, Freya has now created something locals cannot go without.
The 22-year-old said: “I set it up as I had initially run out of books to read myself after I finished up at university.
“I knew a lot of neighbours and people in the village were the same. I had seen similar ideas in France on holidays at the beach so I thought I’d try to create one in the village that would be COVID-safe for everyone to use.
“I posted on our village Facebook page seeing what people thought and I ended up with loads of donations – it just took off from there really and now we have over 400 books.”
Such has been the response from locals the library now contains DVDs, CDs, board games, jigsaws and children’s books.
Freya – who just graduated from Strathclyde University with a Master’s in International Business and Modern Languages – has also been delivering books to elderly residents and those shielding in the local area.
The well-used box has around 40 regular weekly users, with a free children’s box being “cleared out every weekend”.
Now Freya has been able to help more people in need across East Renfrewshire by selling some of the books online to buy school uniforms for a local charity.
She added: “I’ve been selling some of the books online to make room in my house for more books donations.
“I found a local charity that that desperately needed donations. So I used the money raised to buy uniforms and things they needed – it was important to make sure any money raised benefited local groups and charities.”
Freya’s efforts within the community have caught the eye of local East Renfrewshire MP Kirsten Oswald, who set out an Early Daily Motion in Parliament to praise Freya for the library initiative.
The new deputy leader of the SNP in Westminster said the scheme had helped make “life a little better for everyone in their local community”.
Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer put forward a similar motion in the Scottish Parliament, congratulating Freya for her hard with “an excellent example of a community project supporting residents through the challenges of the pandemic”.
In response to her Parliamentary shout-outs Freya said: “I was blown away that it had been noticed that much.
“I’ve really enjoyed doing it each week, meeting new people and helping cure some boredom. It was lovely to be recognised and bring more awareness to the importance of libraries and reading.”
Thankfully, Freya plans to keep Eaglesham Street Library until her local library fully reopens.