Families sometimes spend five to eight hours a week at the Family Coin Laundry in Lincolnton. The Lincoln County Library created a family literacy center at the Family Coin Laundry in Lincolnton thanks to a grant from the N.C. State Library

Library staff included books in Spanish to include Hispanic families that spend several hours a week at the laundry. High school senior Giselle Garcia, whose family used the laundry when she was a child, volunteers to read to children during bilingual story time

The next bilingual story time is Sept. 24 at 10 a.m.

For high school senior Giselle Garcia, it was a weekly routine. 

"When I was a little girl, my family lived at an apartment where we didn't have a washer or dryer. So my sister and I would come here with my mom and we would be so bored. We would try and pass the time by looking for coins on the floor," Garcia said. 

John Russell is the youth services coordinator for the Charles R. Jonas Library in Lincolnton. The library has three locations in the county, but Russell says not all families can access the branches. 

“We love to meet everybody where they are and provide resources. We have over 1,000 books here, many of them bilingual and about half of them in Spanish," Russell said. 

He said the library isn't just the four walls of the three branches.

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