The Antelope Lending Library bookmobile in Ainsworth. Photo courtesy of Jane O’Leary.

Though the Ainsworth Elementary School building closed this spring, children have been flocking to the building every Monday this summer for the Highland summer reading program.

This annual summer reading program serves to instill children’s interest in reading, and to prevent a summer downslide.

The program had to find a new way to incorporate Ainsworth residents with the elementary school closed, as Elementary Principal Jane O’Leary explains, “We decided when the Ainsworth elementary was closing and we weren’t going to be able to have summer library down there for the kids this year, I really wanted us to have a way for kids who couldn’t get to Riverside to participate. So one of my associates, Sheila Mast, brought in a pamphlet of the Antelope Lending Library and I called and talked to Cassie Elton. She gave us a really great deal, they do quite a bit of fundraising, so they had some funds that they could help supplement the bookmobile at Ainsworth this year.” The Antelope Lending Library is an Iowa City-based non profit bookmobile bus that offers free membership, literacy activities, and free wifi for the southeastern Iowa community.

July 24 will be the last Monday for the bookmobile this summer, and O’Leary hopes to bring back the Antelope Lending Library for summer 2018.