There’s a little library sitting outside a grandmother’s home in Chattanooga filled with children’s books, notebooks, crayons, school supplies, and stories waiting to be passed from one set of hands to another.

At first glance, it might seem small.

But the girl behind it has much bigger ideas about what community can look like.

Violet Ellie Lee is preparing to enter 5th grade at The Bright School this fall, but speaking with her, it quickly becomes clear she already thinks deeply about service, access, and what people owe one another.

For Violet, all of it started with reading.

She first fell in love with books while attending Montessori school, beginning with short stories and children’s books before moving into chapter books by age five. Before long, she was asking her mother to bring home even more books, and her passion for reading only continued growing from there.

Reading expanded her vocabulary and strengthened her performance in school, but it also helped her better understand things at home and the world around her.

Then she noticed something she couldn’t stop thinking about.

Whenever Violet visited her grandmother’s house, she would often go over to play with a friend nearby. Over time, she began noticing that her friend didn’t have many books at home. Neither did the friend’s older sister, who struggled with reading herself.

For Violet, the realization felt confusing at first. Why did some children have easy access to books while others didn’t?

Around that same time, Violet’s mother had seen a Little Free Library outside a friend’s home. Wanting to donate some of Violet’s finished books, she took Violet with her. Soon, the two began visiting little libraries around Chattanooga using the Little Free Library app, seeing how ordinary people had created small spaces for sharing resources with others.

That exposure changed something for Violet.

Sometimes seeing someone else care for their community is enough to make you believe you can too.

Before long, Violet asked her mother if she could build a little library of her own and place it outside her grandmother’s house. Together, they raised money from the community, ordered the library, assembled it by hand, and stocked it with books.

And when people began stopping by?

“I felt a rush of joy,” Violet said. “It felt so good.”

Soon, she began helping stock not only her own library, but others around Chattanooga too.

Today, Violet organizes annual school supply drives so children can access notebooks, pencils, crayons, coloring books, and other essentials alongside books. She’s partnered with organizations like The Unity Group of Chattanooga and Hutchins Academy to support literacy and resource access for young people across the community.

But books are only part of what shaped her.

Violet credits both her family and Girl Scouts for teaching her the importance of etiquette, leadership, and serving others. And when she talks about community care, she speaks about it with remarkable clarity.

“Little libraries have different things, and I want everyone to have resources,” Violet told me. “That makes Chattanooga better. It feels good to do the right thing.”

What stood out most during our conversation wasn’t just what she’s already accomplished.

It was how strongly she believes young people should play an active role in shaping the places around them.

“More young people should work to change the community even if they don’t succeed,” Violet said. “Some people might say adults should handle that, but I disagree. Young people have curiosity and we want to learn more. Adults should notice us for what we’ve done in the community and not just our age.”

Too often, adults speak about young people as though they are disconnected from the future of the cities they live in, when many are already imagining ways to improve them. Violet talks naturally about community fridges, food banks, mutual aid, picking up litter, school supplies, and helping neighbors access resources they may not otherwise have.

Not because someone told her it would look impressive.

But because she believes communities work better when people take care of one another.

There’s something powerful about that kind of thinking showing up so early in someone’s life.

Especially now.

At a time when many people feel overwhelmed by the problems facing the world around them, Violet’s story feels like a reminder that meaningful change often begins much smaller than we think. A shared book. A box of crayons. A child noticing another child doesn’t have the same opportunities they do and deciding it mattered.

Outside of her little library work, Violet already has her eyes set on a few new goals this year.

She hopes to earn her Girl Scouts Bronze Award, continue serving her community, and try out for her school’s coeducational flag football team, something that could make her the first girl to join it. She’s also hoping to take a stab at lacrosse.

When I mentioned she might be breaking a few gender barriers along the way, Violet laughed softly on the other end of the phone.

“I guess I am.”

The moment was brief, but it told me a lot about her.

Beneath the sweet demeanor is someone tough as nails, carrying the kind of quiet intensity and purpose that makes you believe she probably won’t let many things convince her she can’t do something once she’s decided otherwise.

Before we ended our conversation, Violet offered one final piece of advice for anyone sitting on an idea they care about.

“Do whatever you put your mind to,” she said. “I’ve met a lot of people who have great ideas but don’t think they can do it. If people don’t believe in you, still do it. Some people’s opinions are their opinions but you have the final one.”

Maybe that’s the real story here.

Not just a little library filled with books and school supplies.

But a young girl who saw a gap in her community and decided she was capable of helping fill it.

At just 27 years old, Mary Gardner Bright founded what would become The Bright School in Chattanooga in 1913, teaching students out of rented homes along McCallie Avenue before the school eventually found a permanent home of its own. What began in a handful of modest rooms would slowly grow into one of Chattanooga’s longest-standing independent schools.

By 1924, the growing school moved into a newly constructed Fort Wood building designed by noted Chattanooga architect R.H. Hunt, whose work helped shape much of the city’s historic architectural identity. The new campus included classrooms for every grade level, spaces for art and manual training, an auditorium, cafeteria, playground, and even upstairs apartments where Miss Bright and other faculty members once lived.

What made the school stand out, though, wasn’t just the building itself.

Miss Bright believed children learned better in smaller, more personal environments after witnessing the challenges of overcrowded public-school classrooms firsthand. Alongside early educators like Kate Thomas and Margaret McCallie, sister of McCallie School founders Spencer and Park McCallie, she helped create a learning environment centered around curiosity, creativity, and individualized attention.

As Chattanooga grew, so did the school, eventually relocating to its current North Chattanooga campus in 1963. Before leaving Fort Wood, the original building was sold to Zion College, a Black college founded during segregation that later became Chattanooga City College before merging into UTC.

Today, the original Fort Wood building no longer exists. A parking lot now sits where generations of children once learned, played, created art, and prepared for lives across Chattanooga and beyond.

There’s something beautiful about realizing community care doesn’t always have to begin with a massive organization, endless funding, or permission from somebody else first.

Sometimes it starts with a little library.

Or a box of school supplies.

Or simply noticing a need around you and deciding it matters.

After speaking with Violet this week, I kept thinking about how many small acts of care already exist quietly across Chattanooga. Community fridges. Food drives. Neighborhood cleanups. Little libraries tucked beside sidewalks and front porches. Most of them were started by ordinary people who simply decided to contribute something back to the places they live.

Maybe that’s part of what makes cities feel human.

If Violet’s story inspired you, here are a few ways to support literacy and community care around Chattanooga:

→ Find a Little Free Library Near You and donate children’s books or school supplies
→ Learn How to Start a Little Free Library
→ Support a neighborhood mutual aid effort or community fridge

And if there isn’t a little library near you?

Maybe that’s your sign to help start one.

Next week, The Blade will be guest written by Logan Elmore, the mind behind the Chattanooga newsletter Chattynooga and its wonderfully observant narrators, Bubby and Clementine.

Writing from Soddy Daisy, Logan has built a voice that captures the humor, oddities, and everyday texture of life around Chattanooga in a way that feels deeply local and unmistakably his own. I’m excited for y’all to experience his take on the city next Tuesday in his own way.

If you haven’t read Chattynooga yet, it’s worth checking out.

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As I get older, I’m becoming more convinced that cities are ultimately held together by ordinary people choosing not to look away from one another. None of it sounds particularly revolutionary on its own, but over time, those small decisions to care become the difference between a city that merely grows and one that still feels human to the people living inside it.

Maybe that’s part of what makes community so fragile right now. It only survives when people continue choosing to participate in it. To share resources. To support neighbors. To create places where people still feel seen, welcomed, and connected to something larger than themselves.

— Marie