Stillwater Girl Scouts discover vandalism to community free library - Oklahoma - News Article Locations on Waymarking.com

Local girl scouts were sad to discover that a Little Free Library they installed at Strickland Park was vandalized.

Article text:

A Stillwater Girl Scouts troop discovered their hard work was destroyed after the Little Free Library they built for an area park was vanished.

On Monday, one of the Girl Scouts in Troop 7384 showed up at Strickland Park to replenish the free library the group built for a service project. She discovered the only thing left of the library was the wooden post holding the display.

“Someone on Facebook commented how they had seen evidence in the barbecue grill there at the park where some of the books had been burned in the barbecue pit there,” said Toni Ivey, troop leader and mother of one of the junior Girl scouts. “It’s sad to me that someone would deliberately do that to books that are meant to be there for the community.”

Ivey went on to say they didn’t know if it was a prank but she asked for the project to be returned.

The library was part of the troop’s Bronze Award Project, which is one of the last projects for junior-level Girl Scouts. Each members of the troop is required to spend 20 hours on the project. They planned the project, worked on putting it together and painting it, and designing the library before they finally unveiled it at Strickland Park during a ribbon cutting April 7th.

“They all went through their libraries and found books to donate,” said Ivey, who also said some members of the community donated books.

The discovery of the damaged and missing library was devastating to the girls. However, since Ivey posted about the incident online, she said the support from the community has been overwhelming.

Ivey said a number of people have reached out to the troop to donate money and supplies to make a new library for the park.

“One thing I’m hoping the girls are going to learn from this experience is that bad things are going to happen in life, things that aren’t so pleasant,” said Ivey. “But what they need to pay attention to is the helpers and the good in the community. And we’ve had monetary donations and promises of time to help them rebuild it if necessary. The girls are really just kind of overjoyed right now and how much support they’re getting from the community and rebuilding their project.”

“I am so proud of the girls because, yes, they are sad and they are so disappointed that this has happened to their project, that they spent their hard earned money on. But I am so proud at their resilience and their response is just people were just going to do it again and we’re going to make it bigger and stronger.”

The troop intends to build a new Little Free Library but it will likely be made of metal and much more secure, to avoid more vandalism.

Type of publication: Television When was the article reported?: 07/08/2022 Publication: Kfor Article Url: [Web Link] Is Registration Required?: no How widespread was the article reported?: local News Category: Crime

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