A local nonprofit received a grant to expand strategies for spreading books, reading and literacy to communities in the Madison area.

The AARP Foundation gave a “Touchpoints for Engagement” grant worth $70,000 to Little Free Library, according to Rick Brooks, co-founder of Little Free Library. The organization builds “mini” libraries offering free book exchanges to members of the community. The grant will be used to help generate better systems and services to reach out to older citizens, he said.

Brooks said the grant will stretch over the course of two years and will allow the organization to build more Little Free Libraries in the area. The organization will use the grant to work with the elderly in their homes, retirement communities, nursing homes or in assisted living facilities.

Brooks and his co-founder Todd Bol established Little Free Library in 2009. Bol said he built the first mini library and set it up in Hudson and placed the second one in Madison.

The organization is meant to be a personal and interpersonal program that promotes reading in a community from preschoolers to the elderly, according to Brooks. He said he and Bol want to provide an easier strategy to reach out to people of all ages and supply something real and tangible to bring those people together.

Bol said the libraries started a network within the community that brought people together by a common need for connection and started up conversations between community members. The libraries connect people from different generations by giving a widespread interest and purpose in the city, he said.

“It opens a common ground of discussion,” Bol said. “It builds a sense of community around something that we identify as important: books, literature [and] education.”

Brooks added the Little Free Libraries have already had a positive effect on community members since the start of the program.

Members of the community with a miniature library in their front yards or neighborhoods have found they have met more people within weeks of having one than they had in 10 or 20 years, according to Brooks. One woman in particular, with a chronic health condition, placed one in her yard, he said.

“She would look out her window or sit on her porch and see people walking their dogs and babies in strollers and groups of kids come up to the little library in her yard,” Brooks said.

The co-founders hope by having more books with all different reading levels available in a community, it will allow for easier access to books for children and give adults who are illiterate or do not read well the chance to practice.

According to Bol, there are approximately 20,000 to 25,000 towns in the U.S. that do not have libraries because they are too expensive and the towns are too small. Bol said the organization is looking beyond the Madison community and hopes to have these libraries in every town across the country without a library.