A few weeks ago, the head of Detroit Public Schools had a goal: a Little Free Library in front of all 97 schools in the district.

Interim Superintendent Alycia Meriweather held a press conference in July and called on the community to sponsor each one. Only two months passed before she met her goal.

Yesterday, Meriweather joined officials from the Detroit Public Schools Foundation and announced that many people in th community had stepped forward to help on this project and National Life Group and GLP & Associates would sponsor 40 Little Free Libraries to push it to completion.

“Literacy has been one of our main areas of focus, and when we saw little libraries popping up around Detroit, we saw the potential to put this focus into action and involve the Detroit community in ushering in a new era for our city’s schools,” Meriweather said. “This sponsorship supports our mission of ensuring that every student has access to quality literature.”

The event, at Neinas Elementary School in Southwest Detroit, brought Jay Dunlap, strategic accounts representative for National Life Group, in from Texas. Jimmy Pollack, Managing Partner for GLP & Associates, also attended.

Todd Bol, founder of the Little Free Library, even made an appearance from Wisconsin to congratulate Detroit for becoming the first school district to put up a Little Free Library at every school.

“We hope Detroit will become a national model,” Bol said.

Meriweather’s goals have helped us reach our goal of 313 libraries in Detroit.

We only hope that students start creating goals of how many books they will read.