A 9-year-old missed the Evanston library so much that she collected pennies for a year — then finally donated them last week

The Evanston Public Library staff got a “beautiful” surprise last week when one of its young patrons presented them with a donation a year in the making — a jelly jar full of pennies.

As the branch at 1703 Orrington Ave. prepared to close for the evening, Circulation Clerk Liz Steimle helped to check out books for the remaining patrons. It was the end of a long, tiring day for Steimle and her colleagues, who have worked through the coronavirus pandemic to remain open and accessible to Evanston residents.

As 9-year-old Zoe and her mom approached the circulation desk, Steimle started to check out their books.

“Then her mom said to me, ‘We have one more thing,’ and then (Zoe) raised up her little jar and just melted my heart. It was just so so sweet and it was so uplifting,” Steimle said.

Zoe handed Steimle a jelly jar packed with hundreds of pennies, with a purple and pink ribbon tied around it, and shyly explained the donation.

“She said she’d been missing the library and this is the money she’d found. She’d been walking around, looking down at the ground and thinking about the library over the past year,” Steimle said.

All told, the donation amounted to $7.72, according to Jill Schacter, the Community Engagement Coordinator at the library, who shared Zoe’s story on the library’s Facebook page on March 2.

She said while people have walked in and donated before, this is the first time a child has.

“She’s an original,” Schacter said.

Zoe’s mother Kivanc Savirli said that the idea was all Zoe’s.

Before COVID-19 shut the city down, they would visit the library as a family every week. Then the kids moved to remote learning, prompting the family to take walks outside together, as it seemed like the only thing they could do, Savirli said.

It was on these walks that Zoe got the idea to start collecting any pennies she found on the ground to give to the library the next time they could visit.

When Zoe was finally able to gift her collection to the library in person, she was elated, and walked around “bright and proud” afterward, her mom said.

“She was so happy and proud — and she’s such a shy girl,” Savirli said.