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Little Free Library Celebrates Three-Year Anniversary

As an avid reader and book lover, I’ve volunteered for the past three years as the steward for a neighborhood Little Free Library. The library is located next to a diverse, socially progressive church, Calvary Baptist Church of Denver, near a busy intersection and a bus stop. It is widely used and supported by church members, neighbors, passersby, and community groups who “take a book and share a book.” Run almost entirely on donations, it provides a variety of free books to people of diverse ages and backgrounds.

My Little Library volunteer work helps me live out my personal mission of helping others and spreading learning and literacy, but I’m not alone in this mission. The seeds were planted by others who came before me and who support my work:

The Little Free Library Organization. In 2009, Todd Bol built a library modeled after a one-room schoolhouse. He built it to honor his mother, a school teacher who loved to read and who had recently passed away. The concept began to spread. In 2012, Little Free Library became an official non-profit organization, which “inspires a love of reading, builds community, and sparks creativity by fostering neighborhood books exchanges around the world.” Todd dedicated his life to that mission until, sadly, he passed away from pancreatic cancer in October 2018. And, at last count, there were over 90,000 little libraries in over 90 countries!

Calvary Baptist Church of Denver. The church became a part of the Little Library movement at the urging of local artist and church member, Todd Clough, who had designed several little libraries around Denver. Pastor Anne Scalfaro carried this vision forward when she asked me to be the librarian for the project in November 2014. Her vision became a reality a year and a half later, in May 2016, when the Boy Scouts installed the library as part of an Eagle Scout project. I filled the library for the first time with my own book donations, but since then, church and community members have supported the library with ongoing book donations.

Pearson. Pearson’s mission to “help people make progress in their lives through learning” aligns nicely with my personal mission and the mission of the Little Free Library organization. Social impact is at the heart of Pearson’s mission. Pearson supports my volunteer work and even helped sponsor the library’s three-year anniversary celebration.

On July 28, 2019, as a crowd gathered with me to celebrate the Little Library’s three-year anniversary with refreshments, balloons, speeches, raffles, and prizes, I felt proud and grateful. I’m proud of touching lives, building community, and sharing my love of books and reading with others. I’m proud to help carry on the mission of Todd Bol and the Little Free Library organization. And, finally, I’m proud and grateful to work for Pearson, a company that supports my volunteer work while acting on its own mission and social impact focus.

How do you live out your personal mission in the world?

Photos by Alice Horner-Nelson

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Hungry for the Holidays: Making a Difference at Food Bank of the Rockies

Five tons of food, enough to feed dinner to 8,245 families and 32,980 individuals that evening… these statistics were shared with me and other volunteers at the end of our shift at Food Bank of the Rockies, “the largest private hunger-relief organization in the state of Colorado.” This was the impact of our collective effort that afternoon. I felt proud and tired.

On arriving earlier that afternoon, after watching a safety video, we had been taken to the area where food and other items are processed from both food drives and grocery rescues. We then were tasked with helping inspect, organize, and box these items for distribution to partner agencies (pantries, soup kitchens, etc.) that serve people in need across Colorado and Wyoming.

For my specific assignment, I was placed with one of their regular volunteers, a retired man, and tasked with labeling and sealing each box as other volunteers brought completed boxes to me. Boxes were organized into categories such as “Snacks and Desserts”, “Soups and Meals”, “Fruits and Vegetables”, “Beverages”, “Water Salvage”, “Spices and Condiments”, “Personal Care”, “Household Items”, and so on. Each type of box also had a specified weight requirement.

At first, it was slow as the other volunteers familiarized themselves with their assignments and started to box items. After about 20 minutes, the boxes started coming to me at a fast pace, and that pace continued for the next few hours. As each box was placed on the assembly line for me, I had to quickly find the correct label, place the label on the box, and then hold down the top of the box and tape it shut with a tape gun. As I finished each box, I handed it off to my partner, who then lifted each box and added it to the correct stack of boxes, organized by type of food or other items. Once a certain number of boxes was reached for a type, one of the employees would move them using a pallet to the area of the warehouse where agencies picked up their orders.

By the end of my shift, I felt almost delirious from the repetitive work, and my arm was tired from fighting with the tape gun. But more than anything, I felt a sense of satisfaction and pride at what we had achieved together and the people we would be helping. According to their volunteer handbook: “1 in 10 Coloradans worry where their next meal will come from. These are people you meet every day – those with low wage jobs, children, seniors on low fixed incomes, and those with health issues. Surprisingly, the homeless represent only about 10% of our food recipients. Nearly half of the food we distribute feeds children.”

In 2017, Food Bank of the Rockies distributed nearly 49 million meals, enough to provide more than 134,000 meals a day to people in need. I’m proud I could be part of that solution in 2018. I’m also happy I could use my Pearson volunteer time over the holidays—a time of overindulgence for many—to help those who are lacking basic essentials such as food.

Where did you volunteer in 2018 that fed your soul?

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10 Things I Learned From My Big Brother

A few years ago, when my big brother Bart was in between jobs and struggling with what to do next, I suggested to him that he should start a blog to help establish his brand presence. Not long after that, I received an email from Bart with the subject heading “I took your advice and started a blog.” In the email, he gave me the link to his first blog, 8 Business Rules I Learned From Watching ‘Burn Notice’ (published on September 26, 2013). Many more followed over the next few months and can be seen on Bart’s Tumbler site.

Sadly, Bart left this world way too early a year ago today, when he died of a sudden and unexpected heart attack at the age of 45. Over the past year, I’ve struggled to find meaning in his life and death and to keep my brother’s legacy going. So, what better way to do this than by writing a blog in Bart’s memory? I think I’ll call it “10 Things I Learned From My Big Brother”:

1. Explore New Places

From the time we were children, Bart was always taking me on adventures to see new places, usually by bicycle. We used to ride through the forest in our neighborhood growing up in a small Buffalo suburb and trek through the wilderness around our family’s new home when we moved to Arizona—checking out new plants and creatures along the way.

As a young adult early in his career, he traveled to Jordan and loved getting to meet the Bedouin people who welcomed him. Together in 1999, Bart and I explored Europe by doing a young adult European tour of nine countries in three weeks. Bart was always dreaming of and talking about the next place he wanted to explore. In fact, the last time I saw him, he was talking about taking a trip to Ireland.

2. Have Fun

Bart loved having fun and playing. When we were in our early 20s, he used to take me to the greyhound dog races to make bets or to Pinkies bar to play pool. He also loved playing racquetball, hiking, and roller blading with me. As an uncle, he was like a big kid himself, always rough housing and jumping on the trampoline with his nieces and nephews who adored him. At his Celebration of Life, his co-workers talked about how much fun he brought to the workplace, for example, by playing ping pong with them. Being with Bart—with his playfulness, sense of humor, and contagious laughter—made any situation fun.

3. Be Yourself

Bart worked for many years in computer programming jobs that weren’t the best fit for his personality. In 2012, he changed gears to work in customer service and then eventually found his calling as an Enrollment Advisor at the University of Phoenix. Working with students made him happy and was a much better fit for his outgoing, sociable, funny, helpful personality.  Bringing his true self to work brought him much more success than trying to fit into a role that wasn’t a good fit for him.

4. Use Your Talents

From the time Bart was a boy, he loved drawing cartoons, and this was a talent he nurtured throughout his life. In college, he created his own comic strip and he also created cartoons for various employers throughout his career. He saw the humor in everyday things at work and helped relieve stress with laughter. He also drew Biblical cartoons for churches. By using his talents and spreading laughter, Bart helped make the world a happier place.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Try New Things

Bart wasn’t afraid to try new things, such as writing a blog for the first time or making a career change. He was always the first one to test out and learn any new technology that came along, such as Android cell phones, Google Voice technology, the Roku, and Amazon Prime. When I was getting ready to buy my first Android, Bart emailed me a list of all the handy apps I should install on my phone. At his Celebration of Life, one of his co-workers shared about how when he called the Help desk at work, he was told to “call Bart Nigro” instead.

6. Keep Learning

Bart had a natural curiosity about the world and current affairs and was always learning new things, whether related to technology, history, religion, business, or politics. He was a Libertarian and had strong political views but was also interested in learning about the views and experiences of others. Bart loved having political discussions with me and others, even if our views differed. He consumed news and information from a wide variety of social networking sites like Linked In and Twitter, news sites like the Huffington Post, and many different books and magazines. After his death, I helped sort through 10 boxes of his books; very few of them were fiction books or light reading.

7. Be a Friend

Bart was a friend to all those who knew him. In fact, so many people who left comments on his online memorial site or who spoke at his Celebration of Life commented on how Bart was the best friend they ever had. My sister and I continue to marvel at how Bart had time for so many different best friends. Bart made time for his friends by texting with them at work or calling them in the car, even if he didn’t always have time to get together. He gave his friends life advice, listened to them, made them laugh, and made each person feel special. I understand how these friends felt—Bart was one of my best friends, too.

8. Be Kind

A gentle man, Bart was kind and respectful to everyone he met. This included people of diverse views and backgrounds and the most vulnerable people in our society, such as children and people with autism. During his period of career uncertainty, he worked as an autism interventionist, helping a young man with autism learn better life skills. Bart would do whatever he could to help anyone in need. He also had a soft spot in his heart for animals and rescued a little abused dog named Zoe, who became his companion for a few years. When we went through Bart’s things, we came across Zoe’s collar and a photo book he had created to remember her.

9. Find Your Inspiration and Aspirations

Like all of us, Bart struggled at times and went through difficult periods in his life, but he never lost his faith in God or his joy in life, and he always tried to keep a positive attitude. He found his inspiration in his time with family and friends, his time with children and animals, his time spent helping others, and his passions and interests, like politics, cartooning, and blogging. He had aspirations and dreams for his future and all the places he wanted to go.

10. Make the Most of Your Time

If Bart had known his time was going to be cut short, I wonder what things he would have done differently. Would he have explored more places? Would he have made the same choices? It’s hard to know what regrets Bart would have had if he had known how it was all going to end.

But I do believe he did the best he could with the time he had and that he lived his life to the fullest—this can be seen in the many people whose lives he touched and who miss him immensely every day, especially today. I am one of those people.