Fourth grader Victoria Gay shared smiles and love this Valentine’s Day. Along with classmates at Garden City Elementary School in Cranston, more than 200 Valentine’s Day cards were delivered to the Pilgrim Senior Center and distributed to seniors and bus drivers.

Victoria and her mother, Elizabeth, stopped by the senior center Thursday to drop off the valentines. Meg Underwood, senior center director, was thrilled to receive the cards and was enthusiastic to hand them out.

“I just can’t thank Victoria enough,” said Underwood in an interview.

The cards were distributed along with lunches last week.

Victoria said she “just wants to make people happy”.

During the holidays, Victoria made Christmas cards for COVID patients in the field hospitals.

When she isn’t making cards, Victoria and Elizabeth are running a little free library in their Cranston neighborhood. The Wishing Well Little Free Library, at 124 Mayfield Ave. was established in August 2019 and has provided free books and activities to readers from across the state.

Little Free Libraries (LFL) are non-profit organizations that have popped up all over the world, with a mission of making books accessible in a growing literary crisis. Little Free Library book-sharing boxes “play an essential role by providing 24/7 access to books and encouraging their love of reading in areas where books are scare,” according to the Little Free Library website.

There are over 100,000 little libraries in over 100 countries. According to statistics gathered by the Little Free Library organization, 92 percent of people say their neighborhood feels like a friendlier place because of a LFL, and 75 percent of people report they’ve read a book they normally wouldn’t read because of a LFL.

“Not many people know about little free libraries,” said Elizabeth. “People are like, what do you mean, giving away free books? If you don’t have one, take one. I tell the kids, take one for each hand—one for now and one for later.”

She believes in bringing the books to the kids with the mobile library branch of Wishing Well. The mobile library is a large book cart attached to the back of a bicycle, which Elizabeth pedals around the neighborhood.

“I have parents telling me their kid is learning about the Arctic and so I’ll stock the library with books about penguins or polar bears,” says Elizabeth.

Elizabeth and Victoria even select books that are themed around certain events of holidays. This week, the Wishing Well Library is stocked with Dr. Seuss books to commemorate the author’s birthday on March 2.

Elizabeth said they were inspired to start the library when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit. “We were looking for things to do. We traveled from Massachusetts all the way through to Connecticut looking for little free libraries and didn’t even know there was one right now the road from our street. And Victoria said, ‘I’d like to do this.’”

But it’s not just books available to borrow at the library. Elizabeth and Victoria added Valentine’s Day craft kits to the library for local kids to pick up. These kits included coloring pages, stickers, candy, and other themed goodies.

They have already started preparing for their “Spring Into Reading Event”, which will include surprise book bundle bags and other themed surprises.

“This is going to be great and the kids are going to love them,” said Elizabeth. “We love putting these free events together for the love of literacy.”

The Wishing Well Little Free Library is currently accepting donations of books for children and adults, as well as small trinkets like sidewalk chalk, jump ropes, and bubbles. To set up a donation, visit The Wishing Well Little Free Library on Facebook.

“It’s a community,” said Elizabeth of the library. “People from Warwick and West Warwick and Coventry, all over, have come together.”