JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — You may see tiny libraries in your neighborhood or nearby park to donate or pick up books for free, but Aaron Bobby wanted to take that idea in a different direction.
He isn’t too much of a bookworm, so he said, Why not do it with movies?
“Always been a big fan of the little free libraries,” Bobby said, “so I was seeing this idea online and I said, I’m absolutely doing that.”
Bobby recently finished building a small nook on the light post in the front yard of his Murray Hill home that he’s turned into a free pick-up and drop-off shelf for movies, even painting it blue and yellow with “Blockbuster” above the door.
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The post he made online showing off his shelf got more than 2,000 reactions, hundreds of shares, and more than a hundred comments. He tells Action News Jax his makeshift Blockbuster has become busy ever since.
“Every day I’m coming in here and there’s a lot of stuff taken out, there’s a lot of stuff put in,” said Bobby.
Bobby said he spent nine months in the last year since moving to Murray Hill building a game room inside his home, filled with everything from magazines to action figures to VHS tapes and CD collections, some of which he’s had his whole life. The free movie library idea, for Bobby, is his way of sharing his stash with the street.
“It’s really sad that you can’t go into a movie rental store now. You can’t go and just browse through and just find a movie that you maybe don’t know or whatever,” Bobby said.
He tells Action News Jax he’s hoping to make more of the tiny movie libraries to install in other places around Murray Hill, but has a goal of, eventually, opening a video rental store in the neighborhood.
“I want to kind of bring back just a little bit of nostalgia,” said Bobby, “it’s really cool to see how many people are actually coming through and grabbing movies, it’s awesome.”
The “Blockbuster” movie library can be found on Polaris Street. Bobby has already started a social media page to advertise the free movies, which can be found here.
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