In Trenton and MDI, Little Free Libraries have evolved into places where neighbors share school supplies, food, and other necessities right alongside the books.
Sep 08, 2026
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by ArtWaves.
TRENTON—The post on the Facebook page, Trenton Town Crier, didn’t involve fanfare or bravado. It didn’t complain.
Instead, Cecilia Z’s post just calmly and quietly told the community something: There were a few more school supplies in the Little Free Library at Trenton’s town office ready for someone who needed them to take them.
Notebooks and markers crowded in with the books.
Kudos were quickly posted, but also, others said they’d be adding some in too. The good deed spread.
Taking its numbers from the National Retail Federation, Capital One posted in 2026 that the cost of school supplies increased 7.3% to a $557 per student average (K-12) in the United States from 2025 to 2026.
“The average educator spends nearly $900 out-of-pocket on classroom materials,” the credit card company writes.
Books are what Little Free Libraries were originally intended to be about, but as other costs for supplies or food increase, the little boxes have stepped in as anonymous places to give and to receive.
According to its website, “Little Free Library book-sharing boxes are placed in front yards, housing projects, community centers, schools, parks, gardens, and other easily accessible locations. The Libraries are built to withstand weather of all kinds and hold 20-100 books.”
There are well over 200,000 in the world. To be official, a library has to be registered. On all seven continents, people exchange books from the boxes.
However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the receptacles have sometimes hosted other things. In Trenton, that’s often school supplies. In Bar Harbor, there have been canned goods and toothbrushes sometimes tucked inside the Little Free Library at the Park Street Playground, a library erected by the Bar Harbor (Mount Desert) Rotary Club.
Little Free Libraries are meant to be about its mission: “Take a book, share a book.”
Sometimes, however, they also become neighborhood centers. During the pandemic in 2020, some Little Free Libraries closed because people worried about transmitting the virus.
Others, however, stayed open and changed their mission offering laughs, a poem a day, or food, toilet paper, and protective masks popped up in the little wooden structures across the country and the Mount Desert Island region.
“It’s all happened organically, which shows the type of people we have as stewards,” Little Free Library executive director Greig Metzger told Kelly Mayfield in 2020. “I’ve seen a food pantry, a library stocked with masks, and one with puzzles and craft supplies to help entertain kids.”
That stewardship hasn’t ended in Trenton, a community of just around 1,660 year round residents. There are multiple Little Free Libraries in the Trenton and the rest of the Mount Desert Island region. Some are on the official maps and some aren’t. Some were started by individuals, towns, businesses, or the Bar Harbor (MDI) Rotary Club.
The model for the libraries has been “give what you can, take what you need.”
Sometimes that’s books. Sometimes it’s something else.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
How to start a Little Free Library if you’re into it.
How to find a Little Free Library near you. (The Park Street Playground is not on this map, but others are.)
We’ve updated this story at 9:39 am, Tuesday, September 8, 2026, to include a photo and shorten a name.
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