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Library organizers in both cities say they’ve received inquiries from parks and recreation officials in other Michigan communities looking to set up their own libraries. Among them is the Grand Rapids suburb of Kentwood, where parks department program coordinator Spencer McCellar told Bridge Michigan his team will open its own gear library this winter.
The gear-lending trend is gaining traction nationwide, too. Before the pandemic, Outdoors Empowered Network’s membership stood at about seven libraries nationwide. Now, White said, it’s nearing two dozen.
“There’s a lot of interest out there,” she said, something she credits to a booming outdoor recreation scene and a growing focus on shrinking racial and socioeconomic disparities.
Meanwhile, society’s outdoor recreation preferences are changing. A 2017 survey of Grand Rapids residents showed a shift in the kinds of services they wanted from parks, away from organized sports and toward opportunities to hike, kayak, or simply be in nature.
“The results were really quite startling,” Marquardt said, and the city’s gear library reflects an effort to cater to residents’ changing tastes.
Already, demand has been high: This month alone, Truby and his small staff have loaned out hundreds of pieces of equipment.
On a recent afternoon, a group of teenage girls stopped by to pick out shoes and rain gear for a series of upcoming outings. The girls, who were all on criminal probation and enrolled in a court program designed to help them succeed, joked and asked questions as they sifted through the racks of clothing.
Few of them would be able to afford those items on their own, said Frank Briones, a county surveillance officer who chaperoned the girls. And it would have been far harder to organize upcoming trips to Saugatuck Dunes and Mackinac Island that will give many of the teens a first glimpse at the world outside Grand Rapids.
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