Area organization representatives and members of the community handed out small pieces of paper tied with ribbon Thursday in the town of Farmville during the town’s celebration of Poem in Your Pocket Day.

Vicky Page with Friends of the Farmville-Prince Edward Community Library, basket in hand, walked up and down Main Street with fellow volunteers and handed out poems to pedestrians.

By the end of the day, Page said she handed out all of the poems she had in the basket.

She estimates that the Friends of the Farmville/Prince Edward Community Library and Longwood University’s Greenwood Library printed approximately 1,250 poems.

The poems had four themes, marked by different colored ribbons.

Love poems were marked with red ribbons, poems about nature were marked with blue ribbons, poems about seasons were marked with green ribbons and children’s poems were marked with yellow ribbons.

“We handed them out to mothers with children, we handed them out to just all kinds of people,” Page said. “It was a really great experience.”

The two organizations joined with the Farmville Downtown Partnership and different businesses downtown. Baskets of poems were also available at downtown stores, Longwood University and the Barbara Rose Johns Farmville-Prince Edward Community Library.

The Poem in Your Pocket Day event, according to a news release from the Longwood University and the Barbara Rose Johns Farmville-Prince Edward Community Library, was “initiated in April 2002 by the Office of the Mayor in New York City, in partnership with the city’s Departments of Cultural Affairs and Education. In 2008, the Academy of American Poets took the initiative to all 50 United States, encouraging individuals around the country to participate.”

Page said they even brought poems to town officials after they adjourned from a Finance and Ordinance Committee meeting Thursday.

Town Manager Gerald Spates and Town Clerk Lisa Hricko, who attended the meeting, said they received a poem in addition to Town Mayor David Whitus. The poem Spates received, he said, was written by James Weldon Johnson, titled “Deep in the Quiet Wood.”

“It was very thoughtful of the individuals that do that,” Spates said of the event. “I know a lot of effort went into it.”

Page said she is looking forward to future Poem in Your Pocket Day events.

“I think we have a tradition starting here in Farmville,” Page said.