Visitors to Melham Park in Broken Bow will soon be able to add reading to their outdoor adventure with the planned addition of a StoryWalk arriving soon. Helping fund the project are grants received from the Library Commission and Custer County Foundation as well as generous donations from businesses, organizations, and individuals. Library director Megan Svoboda was a recent guest on KCNI’s Public Affairs and gave an update on the project.
“We were lucky enough to receive two nice grants, one from the Library Commission and one from the Custer County Foundation, to help fund our StoryWalk and we also have 25 local businesses or organizations that each sponsored one of the pedestal stands. Each pedestal will have a couple pages of the story so you’ll walk along the path and you’ll stop and read a couple of pages then you will go about 50 yards up the path and then there will be the next page. So we have 25 pages that have been spoken for and then we have four individuals who have agreed to sponsor the monthly story so we have some great support going with that. I was able to go ahead and order the pedestals and they have just been delivered recently so they are in and the city crews are going to be working this spring and summer to get it installed.”
Svoboda said that donations are still be accepted to sponsor stories that will be featured during the walk.
“We would accept donations for the monthly story sponsor which costs about $50 to sponsor a story and then we would be a little blip saying this story brought to you by whoever. Some families have donated and some businesses so it’s just kind of a fun thing.”
StoryWalks exist in public outdoor spaces across the country displaying story pages on weather resistant pedestals so that visitors can stop and read during their walk.
