PINEVILLE, N.C. — As the doors reopened Monday at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library’s Pineville branch, a special event helped bring books back into the community.
The library was forced to shut down in April when a driver barreled into the building, which is shared with Pineville Town Hall, and died.
[ PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Driver dies after car crashes into Pineville library ]
After an entire summer without their local library, the local nonprofit, Pineville Neighbors Place, hosted a free book fair to help kids get their hands on new stories.
“I’m actually a little speechless,” event organizer, Marlow Metcalf, told Channel 9’s Miana Massey. “I was not anticipating such a great turnout.”
Families packed Pineville United Methodist Church for an offer that was hard to pass up.
“They said free books, and I’m like, ‘I’m in,’” Aleea Ewon Peters said at the event.
Metcalf organized the festival after that car sped down Main Street in April and crashed on the building’s front lawn. The damage kept the library closed for months.
[ READ MORE >> Pineville library reopens months after deadly crash ]
To help fill that gap, Monday’s festival offered free books, along with games, vendors, arts and crafts and story time.
For Metcalf, the event was about more than sending children home with something new to read. It was also a reminder of the connection a good story can create.
“The books take you all sorts of different places,” she said. “It teaches us new things. It create imagination in children and things to talk about. It gets us offline but still connects us to each other.”
Now that the library is back open, organizers hope today’s event is just the beginning.