By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
WARSAW — A collaborative effort by the Warsaw City Parks Department and Warsaw Community Public Library culminated Monday morning with a grand opening of StoryWalk, a permanent literacy program installed along part of the Beyer Farm Trail in Warsaw.
The program has 19 installments that are spaced along the western part of the trail and tell a short story in separate installments.
The $6,000 cost was covered by money from the local Friends of the Library as well as the Warsw Kiwannis and the Warsaw Noon Optimist Club.
The effort was headed up by Library Director Heather Barron and quickly gained the support of the parks’ director of recreation, Stephanie Shcaefer, and superintendent Larry Plummer.
Schaefer, a former school employee, loved the idea of mingling education and nature.
“Reading and nature — two of my favorite things — so I’m excited to watch families come out here for years to come and enjoy thins,” Schaefer said.
Plummer said he thinks Buyer Farm Trail was the perfect fit.
“We’re just thrilled to have it and we look forward to many stories on the trail,” Plummer said.
For Barron, it’s a chance to move library programming outside of the library and continue a strong relationship with the parks department.
“We seem to have a really strong relationship with them and so I think they have great relationships with all other organizations so it made it really easy to bring people into this project,” Barron said.
The program also got a boost from the city’s Language Matters service, which made the program bilingual.
