Meredith Moore is learning her way around Cranston making deliveries. But she’s not bringing a food order, groceries or an Amazon package.

Moore is the librarian at Garden City and Oak Lawn elementary schools, and she is bringing books to nurture and feed the minds of her students.

“It’s been so fun to see the kids, even if it is through windows, and I’m learning lots of street names and locations mapping out my routes,” she said. “I post pictures of the books in the Google Classrooms, and kids send in requests. For Reading Week, I’ve been on a few class meetings live, holding up the books for the kids to see and ask for.”

Moore informed both principals of her plan, and they were supportive and on board with the idea. She has always encouraged her students to treasure reading.

“For all the lessons I give and informational literacy knowledge and critical thinking skills I try to get into my kids’ brains, I think my most important role is as a model reader and book recommender,” she said. “Checkout time is when students get to choose stories and nonfiction that pique their interest. I don’t care if a kindergartner wants an encyclopedia or a fifth-grader wants a picture book. I care that they are finding what they want.”

The challenge of distance learning had her figuring out new ways to reach her students.

“Once we started distance learning, I would try and post at least once a week in each Google Classroom about what I was reading,” Moore said. “Then I started running out of the print books I had taken out of the public library. I was able to download ebooks via Overdrive from the public library, but it made me think about the fact that lots of kids had no access to books. I started collecting good titles from the Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood in Providence, and posting them in the Classrooms for kids to request for delivery. I did start raiding my own collection for books that I could bear to part with.”

She also recruited her school colleagues to help keep her stocked.

“When teachers were allowed to go back to their classrooms a few weeks ago to grab whatever had been left behind in March when schools were shut down, I decided to pack up my car with as many free books as possible,” she said. “I have ‘prize boxes’ full of books that I give away for various reasons – perfect scores on end-of-trimester quizzes, doing extra credit, volunteering, etc. I also receive donations at both schools from families, and a ton of them were waiting for me to find time to check and see what we could add to the collection versus putting in the prize box. And some I bought at Savers or at library book sales for 50 cents [or] a dollar.”

Since Moore had more books to give away, she had her principals put a blurb in their weekly emails to let parents know to tell their kids to check their library Google Classrooms. She also posted on her schools' library Facebook pages. For Reading Week, she let teachers know she could do giveaways during class Zoom meetings.

To date, she has delivered 235 books to 97 students in 81 families over the course of 13 runs.

Now that local libraries have started to reopen, Moore said she will probably stop come the end of June.

“Some kids are so eager for new books to read that as soon as I post a new photo, they have emailed me a request within five minutes. For several addresses, I no longer need Google Maps,” she said with a laugh.

Molly Mitchell, a fourth-grader at Garden City, has been requesting books within literally two minutes of Moore posting them.

“Thank you for helping me and building my love of reading,” Molly messaged Moore.

Her family was one of the ones that donated books for Moore to give out. Seven families have contributed so far, and one additional family gave her a set of “Fly Guy” books that she’s going to add to the library collection because the buckets are always empty.

“Molly is one of several girls who loved doing book talks in class last year. They would inspire their classmates to read the books they were recommending,” Moore said.

Moore has gotten only positive feedback from her families.

“This is really so thoughtful of you. Thank you for your dedication to our kids,” wrote Michelle Hall Carrara, mom to a third-grader at Oak Lawn.

One parent, who is a teacher in Providence shared her experiences about trying to get her daughter to read.

“I wanted to say thank you for dropping off that book for Sophia! She loved it. It has been a challenge getting books for her, even with curbside pick-up at the library. It was very kind of you. It has been such a crazy year and a little kindness goes a long way,” Rachel Clark said. 1