BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — After eight years without a library, a Brooklyn elementary school finally opened the doors to a new reading room on Friday.
Appalled by the lack of resources at Bed-Stuy’s Young Scholars’ Academy for Discovery and Exploration, afterschool teacher Stephanie Reisnour launched a Kickstarter campaign in September to revamp a storage room in the building.
Students were unable to access a quiet space to do homework or check out books, Reisnour said, and the school lacked funds for a librarian.
Instead, kids could use small libraries in their classrooms, but supplies were limited, she said.
YSADE’s unused storage space housed plastic bins, cardboard boxes, broken furniture and thousands of unorganized, outdated books.
“It was absolutely disgusting,” Reisnour said. “Holes in the wall, chipping paint, dust everywhere.”
The educator raised more than $4,700 over the course of a month to renovate the room with new shelving, couches, decorations, globes, art supplies and books for the school's nearly 200 students.
With the help of 125 volunteers who worked more than 900 hours through the end of January, Reisnour and school staff opened the library on Feb. 6.
“This provides them with a lot of options and opportunities to explore beyond the classroom and gives kids a calm, safe space they may not get at home,” Reisnour said.
“The students will be able to start bringing books home, which is a big thing for a lot of those who don’t have access to a public library — whether it’s because they don’t have a permanent address or their community library is underfunded.”
Investment company HealthCor funded more than $3,000 of the project’s online campaign and provided an additional grant to give students gifts for the holidays.
In addition to working at YSADE’s afterschool program, Reisnour now serves as the Hart Street school’s librarian.
“It’s the most rewarding and best thing I’ve ever done,” she said.
