New life as library branch

OKC resident turns once-dying tree into place for bookworms

What was once an oak tree in an Oklahoma City resident’s yard has transformed into a library filled with free books.

Dave Summers said he and his girlfriend, Lindsay Fiegel, had shared their home for about four years when one of their oak trees caught on fire.

The tree had been subject to a gas leak for about two years before, Summers said. When a large storm passed through, the tree ignited, and in order to fix the leak, nearly three quarters of the tree’s roots had to be dug up, Summers said.

Summers said Fiegel always had wanted to build a Little Free Library as a part of a community project that has been spreading across the city, and they saw their opportunity in the death of the tree.

“Literacy has always been very important to her from a very early age,” Summers said. “We talked about it, and instead of me going somewhere and getting timber, I thought ‘I think we’ve got our library.’ ”

Little Free Library is a nonprofit organization that supports literacy by encouraging people to build small libraries in

their neighborhoods. The libraries take on a variety of shapes and sizes, but each contains a collection of books freely available to the public.

Summers said his library, located at 1504 NW 22, was modeled after the theme of “The Giving

Tree,” with a carving in the bottom of the tree that mirrors the book’s depiction of a heart with “me & t” inside of it.

After Summers finished remodeling the tree into a library, he said the tree soon began to come back to life and sprout branches, which are now filled with green leaves.

“It is the giving tree, you know; the tree was sick, the tree was dying

and then work had to be done on it and it kind of killed the tree, which was a shame, but look at what it’s doing,” Summers said.

Summers said the library has brought him and Fiegel closer to their community, and as they’ve watched it grow, they’ve noticed the impact it has had.

“A lot of people within the community, they

would love to read books and be able to use a library, and they can’t get to the library,” Summers said. “We do have people come up from down the street, and they’re using it like a weekly library.”

The library’s book collection comes from a mix of local donations and Fiegel’s own personal collection, Summers said. Each day the couple return from work, they are excited to

see how many books have been taken.

“At the end of the day, we sit up here and we see families either walk by or drive by, and a couple of kids sit on the seat and their mom or dad sit there and they read a book or take a book — it’s great,” Summers said.

Though it’s only been a couple of months since Summers finished the library, he said it has

become a big part of his and Fiegel’s lives, and they hope to see it continue to grow as time goes by.

“It became really important to me, and what I love about it is that it sprouted back,” Summers said.

“Anything that can bring communities together, I just feel so a part of this community and I love it. Anything I can do to help out, I’ll do it.”