Hobbs High School’s Rotary Interact Club held a ribbon cutting and dedication ceremony of their Traveling Pages free library stand at Hobbs City Park on Wednesday, June 19.
This free library stand is the result of a refurbished newspaper stand, donated by the Hobbs News-Sun, and filled with free books and reading materials from numerous donors.
Over the last year, the Interact Club has worked on this newsstand by cleaning, sanding, and painting it Rotary yellow and placing Interact stickers on either sides of the freshly painted newspaper stand.
A plaque to show registration of the stand as a free library has been placed on the front of the stand. At the ribbon cutting, the seniors painted their hands Rotary blue and placed them on the stand to leave their mark for the life of the free library.
Traveling Pages is the name chosen by Zakaya Benge, the Interact member to begin this free library newspaper stand project in Hobbs. After the club officers heard about the newspaper stand that Zakaya and her mother refurbished and stocked with books was running low on books, they requested assistance from the Hobbs Rotary Club to keep Zakaya’s stand stocked and to also help them to obtain another newspaper stand to work on as a whole club.
As the sponsor of the Rotary Interact Club, the Hobbs Rotary Club has been impressed and inspired by these young Rotary members and jumped to assist their Interact Club with donations of reading materials and obtaining a new stand.
New Generations Chair (the main communicator with Interact) Remy Reeder stated, “Being part of New Generations, getting to be involved with these young men and women, and watch them grow has been a great experience. Seeing their drive and want to better their community is en eye opener to how making changes both big and small can make such an impact. Interact, in part with Rotary, is a great team.”
