To create these beautiful Street Libraries for Wainwright Park, Kingswood, six groups came together. Small Shift worked with Kingswood residents, Mission Australia, Evolve Housing and Community Greening over the last 8 months to identify different ways to help neighbours connect and improve the neighbourhood, supported by Penrith City Council. Street Libraries were so popular, that we decided to create not one, or two, but three of them! The Kingswood community wanted to trial a food pantry (using a Street Library as the box) and two book shares – one for children (painted and looked after by Mission Australia as part of their wider Rooby Roo – Paint Penrith REaD program) and one for adults. On the first night all the children’s books were taken by little ones! The community is very excited to take what they need and leave what they can, and we have some amazing community champions looking after them.
Small Shift is a social enterprise that trains and inspires communities to create beautiful, meaningful and unique spaces in their neighbourhood. This DIO (Do-It-Ourselves) Kingswood project, which included the Street Libraries, was made possible by Penrith City Council’s Magnetic Places grants program and the support from its passionate staff.
