In the summer of 2021, public libraries everywhere, from and to and , will to families with children in their local communities.

What might look like a new role for libraries of serving as , and .

I’ve been address – what happens when households can’t acquire adequate food because they can’t afford it or can’t access it for other reasons. Across the board, these efforts emerge from community partnerships with organizations that include school districts and food banks.

As , president of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, explained in 2016, “We have the food, and they have the patrons who need it.”

Lunch at the Library

The earliest example of this kind I’ve found dates back 35 years. In 1986, the Nelsonville branch of the Athens County Public Library in southeastern Ohio began to children to ensure that they don’t go hungry.

That county has one of Ohio’s , which helps explain why librarians there sought to provide .

By 2019, – about – served summer meals.

This practice has largely remained below the radar. The official magazine of the didn’t mention this trend until 2008. Since then, though, growing and has begun to emerge.

The COVID-19 Pandemic

When the coronavirus pandemic got underway, public libraries and their staff continued to fight , even when their doors were closed.

Some library workers were to help process and distribute donations. Others worked with food banks to hand out in library parking lots.

Still others established at libraries.

In St. Louis, the county public library system took part in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s . Libraries everywhere, from and to and , participated in the emergency national food distribution program too.

Many libraries have started to host small . These sharing boxes are modeled on the “” movement. These are usually simple cabinets fastened to posts and stocked with books anyone passing by can take for free. The movement, which began in 2016 and seems to have , instead seeks to dispatch food to those in need.

In 2021, by the middle of May, at least to schoolchildren during their summer vacations. This number is only preliminary and will rise once more states report their data to the USDA.

This essay originally appeared at and is published in partnership with