I am really excited to welcome Betsey Kennedy, the director at the Cazenovia public library in New York. 
She comes to us with an excellent project. 
She's been working on focused on family literacy in a food pantry. 
So, welcome, Betsey. 
I will just make sure -- there we go, perfect. 
>> Welcome. 
>> Hi, Jennifer. 
Thank you. 
>> Betsy, we're not hearing you, I am seeing you are unmuted but we are not hearing your voice. 
>> Can you hear me now? 
>> Yeah, thanks. 
>> Thanks. 
>> Now I am not hearing you. 
>> I'm sorry. 
>> Now I am hearing you. 
I am hearing you now. 
>> Ok. 
>> I haven't changed anything but here I am. 
>> Ok, great. 
>> Shall I just begin, Jennifer? 
>> Yep, you are all set. 
>> Ok. 
Thank you very much, Jennifer, and I echo her comments on going to the association of rural and small library conferences. 
It was a wonderful experience. 
Today we're going to talk about family literacy in a food pantry, obviously. 
And what I want to make sure that you all know is that this is our experience and our community, and your communicate may be very different, and I am happy to share what we have learned, and hopefully, it will help you in your next venture into this. 
As Jennifer said, I am Betsy Kennedy, and I've been the director at the Cazenovia public library for 32 years, or something like that. 
My bachelor's degree is in elementary school education, and my masters is in, obviously, library science. 
So, our community is about 9,000 people. 
And we're a suburb of Syracuse, New York, so we're in central New York. 
And we have many professors that work at Syracuse University and other colleges, and doctors, but we also -- it's also a farming community. 
So, there is a great need for a family literacy program. 
So, let's go onto the next one. 
Ok. 
I am panicking because I can't get this to move. 
>> Ok. 
Just a reminder that the little tiny arrows at the top center of the slide -- 
>> Sorry, sorry. 
>> That's ok. 
>> Ok, let's get going. 
Ok. 
So, this all started, some of you may remember, the pla initiative, every child to read that started in about 2004. 
Our library system, the mid York library system, received a wonderful grant through New York state, and trained us on the every child ready to read program. 
And if any of you are familiar with it, it's talking about libraries, training parents, on how to, every day read, talk, play, sing, with their child. 
And it was something that we have never done before. 
We had always just worked with children, but after the training, our library thought, you know, it would be really important for us to target the parents that go to our local food pantry. 
Our local food pantry is CazCares. 
CazCares is a nonprofit. 
It serves the people, in Madison county, so even though our little community is part of Madison county, that's 60,000 people, many, probably two-thirds of the people that use CazCares, are from outside of our area. 
As we said, it's a food pantry. 
They also have clothing. 
And they are only open three mornings a week. 
Our library has worked with them on and off for years, collecting school supplies, collecting books at christmas time. 
So, we knew that we wanted to collaborate with them. 
So, after our every child ready to read program, training, we thought well, we'll ask CazCares to notify their parents, that they can come to the library for training, and we had all sorts of incentives. 
We really thought that this was going to be a great way to reach out to these people. 
Well, no one came. 
We tried several different ways to entice people to come to the library. 
No one wanted to come to the library, so we thought ok, how can we reach our target audience? 
Coincidentally, at the same time, CazCares moved to larger quarters, and they had an extra room. 
The donor of the of the building, asked, do you have any ideas for that extra room? 
And boy, did I ever. 
And we were able to start our wonderful story room. 
So, he bought these kind of dividers. 
You can see, it's a big room, and he gave us a space that is 10.5 feet by 30 feet, to be used as our story room. 
The intention was always just to have an early literacy place, where parents could come in, with their little ones, and we would look how to read, sing, talk, play with their children. 
So, this was not going to be done on our own. 
We had, of course, our library, CazCares, Madison county reads ahead is a county program that trains tutors, to help people get their GED, and now it's called task, and we also had individual donors, and some small grants, so we all worked together to make this happen. 
And at our story room, you can see on that lower right-hand side, that's the room, and in the back, there is a big window. 
And what is, actually, happening, the parents were anxious to do their shopping at the food pantry, and in the clothing area. 
And kind of dropped off their kids. 
Well, that was not what we really thought we would be doing. 
Initially. 
We thought that the parents would be staying, but, it's worked out just fine because the window was there, the door is open, and even though the parents are not in the room with us, they can see what's going on. 
And the fact that the parents leave their child with our volunteers, and our literacy coordinator, represents a kind of trust. 
and the adults in the room are volunteers, kind of built on that trust, and it's been something that we did not anticipate, but once they built this trust with the parents, at the food pantry, then the parents would start sharing their lives, and how difficult it was, and our volunteers were just very open in listening. 
on the left is this wonderful mural that was done by the Cazenovia college students who came up and saw the room and thought it needed a little sprucing up. 
We also wanted to make sure that the library was receiving credits for doing the story room, so we have this giant Banner made, with the library logo, because it's not in our building, we wanted to make sure that people knew this was a library. 
Program. 
Now, you may have an entirely different situation, and you may want to reach out some place else, made a Laundromat or social services. 
Maybe your food pantry only has a small area. 
Whatever it is, wherever you are you know, you just kind of make work with, make it work, wherever you are. 
Inside little room here, we had that rug. 
You can't see very well. 
It was donated by someone who said oh, no, you can't go there. 
It has a concrete floor. 
Let me get you a rug. 
So, people are more than willing to help. 
Here are some children working on a craft, so what I am going to do is just going to click through these different pictures of smiling children, while I talk a bit more about the room. 
How we started is that we had a literacy coordinator in place already, that was doing adult literacy, and she was not very busy. 
So, I asked her if she would be willing to take on this, this story room. 
Which she did, and so she organized the volunteers and trained the volunteers, and she kind of set the example of being very open, not judgmental, and actually, being a good listener, and helping create a welcoming atmosphere for the clients at CazCares. 
Every time a client comes in, a child comes in, they always leave with at least one book, if not two or three. 
The books come in from donations directly to CazCares, and they also come to the library, and then we take them up to CazCares. 
So, this is a time for parents to see how nice it is to have a child on our lap and how nice it is to snuggle with your child and to give them activities. 
These are the numbers from our story room, in 2014. 
And as you can see, the total was 623, which was the most coming in August. 
And all of a sudden this summer we had all these school aged children, so our literacy coordinator said well, we have all these older kids here, let's join the summer reading program. 
And that's exactly what they did. 
On this -- in the outcomes Page, on the top picture, there are three women. 
There is a student in the center. 
And our literacy coordinators cindy and Carla, cindy McCall and Carla Zimmerman are there. 
And they really set the stage for this kind of, as I said, non-judgmental, open relationship with the parents of the young children. 
They really created a sense of trust in -- and all of a sudden the parents are saying, oh, my gosh, you know, I never got my GED. 
What can I do to get a high school equivalency exam? 
So, cindy and Carla said well, that's something that we can help you with, so we went from having more tutors, than students, and than more students than tutors. 
It came came because of the relationship building, that happened at CazCares. 
So, our tutors, tutor the, at the library, at CazCares, and this is my favorite picture. 
This is big Mike and little Mike. 
Big Mike worked on getting his GED, was a couple of years ago, and little Mike was a study attendee in the story room. 
So they -- the story room people worked together to create this family literacy. 
As I said, we added the story, the summer reading program, and whole families would participate in the summer reading. 
Again, these are families coming to the food pantry, CazCares, which is only open three mornings a week. 
To get supplemental food. 
They are usually people that had low income jobs, they made people be people with a disability, people that might just have a temporary problem. 
But, they would come in and in the summer, they would bring their kids. 
So, and our own summer reading program, we don't use incentives any more, but we found incentives really worked at CazCares. 
Tiffany's family, up in the corner, all participated, and you may not be able to see, but those little guys have on flash flights on their headbands, those cool things that workmen use to keep their hands free. 
That was the summer that we had dig into reading, and those guys worked really hard to get those flashlights. 
The little girl on the bottom, worked very hard to read the required number of books, and when we wanted to take her picture for the paper, she said oh, I think that I need to be in front of this mural because she thought it was very important. 
This year, our summer reading program added a reading club, and we were able to purchase 20 copies of the bfg, and families would read allude, and we gave out a bookmark on why it's important to read aloud with your children even though they can read themselves. 
>> Betsy. 
>> Yes. 
>> I just wanted to jump in for a second as you transition. 
There was a question about the volunteers, whether or not they are all adults, or do you also have teen volunteers? 
And I know that you have -- there are different volunteers for the early literacy and the adult literacy, and other programs. 
Can you just talk a bit about that, and then I think that you are going to touch on it again later, if I am not mistaken. 
>> Sure. 
Sure. 
The volunteers that are in the food pantry, are adults. 
We have about 12 volunteers. 
Most of them are retired teachers. 
The -- we do in the summer hire a high school helper because there is so many kids in there. 
And then, we have 12 other volunteers who are trained by Madison county reads ahead for the adult literacy program. 
Any other questions? 
>> Yeah, so then just to follow on the question, now, more around staffing, so the -- your literacy coordinator, is that person an employee of the library? 
>> Yes, and actually, I think that it's coming up. 
We now have two literacy coordinators, and I am embarrassed to say, we pay them $8400 each. 
They both have their 20 hour a week jobs. 
They do it because they love the idea of family literacy. 
But, we also respect the fact that they are working many, happy hours. 
>> Right. 
So, are they -- you talked about the three mornings a week, can you talk a bit about what the staffing looks like for the facility? 
>> So, our part of the literacy part has always has two adults in the room, sometimes three. 
And the other portion, the food pantry and clothing portion of CazCares has their own set of volunteers. 
>> Right. 
Ok. 
Ok. 
Excellent. 
All right. 
Well, folks, keep posting questions. 
This is great. 
This is -- Betsy has lots of answers, and experiences to share, so keep the questions coming. 
Thank you, Betsy. 
>> Sure. 
>> So, what we started out as an early literacy program, turned into family literacy, after we added the adult literacy, and the summer reading program, we realized oh, we're doing family literacy, and it was a step-by-step, over probably about five years or so. 
That happened. 
Oh, and here's our slide on the volunteers. 
So, our volunteers work for adult literacy, mostly in our library, but also, in the neighboring library. 
Sometimes, at CazCares, but mostly here at our library, and then our other volunteers, of course, work with the children in the story room. 
As I touched on before, we started out with cindy, the woman on the top, and expanded, and added Carla, the woman on the lower portion of the screen. 
Both have worked very hard to really look at what is needed now, what do we need here in our program now and addressed that, so one of the things was parent education, we are now actually keeping track of every time that there is a consultation with a parent, just to see how often we're helping parents with any kind of question about, where do I -- how do I apply to head start. 
Where do I go for any kind of service. 
And we want our coordinators to be cognizant of what services are available. 
One thing that they noticed was gosh, these kids, and their families, really need some dental health literacy so we started a dental health program with a couple ear agencies. 
The fidelis health group helped us, and also, mohawk -- I can't remember the name of it, a childcare council at the big tooth there that came, so every child would get a new toothbrush, and toothpaste, and would practice brushing on those giant teeth. 
So, it became quite a big deal, and hopefully, every year, we are giving out fresh toothbrushes and more toothpaste. 
And then the next one was in the spring talking about seeds and growing, and the kids, actually, planted their little seeds, and watched them grow, and of course, everything that we do has a literacy background. 
There are books about it, it's a language rich environment. 
And another need that came through, was English as a second language. 
Many of the migrant workers on the farms that surround our community, are from Guatemala or Mexico. 
They were coming to CazCares for services. 
And it was discovered many could not speak English. 
So, in coordination with St. James' church, who provided the transportation, the mothers came with their children, the children stayed in the story room, with other volunteers and then the mothers were being taught English, tame. 
So, it was a very handy thing for them. 
That has since moved on to the library just south of us, which was much closer to the farm. for the families. 
Other programs, we just kept seeing the possibilities, and what could we do when people would offer their services? 
Pat hill, the woman in the center here, the center picture, loves to work with children doing more interactive things rather than just reading or guided play. 
She, actually, brings sensory bins, and explores with colors are and sorting and it's more interactive than sitting and she's great at it. 
She comes up with some amazing ideas. 
And we also, another project is this family photo project. 
We realized that the people were taking pictures, but they were never printed. 
Nobody could afford to have them printed. 
So, our friends of the library, underwrote, having pictures every family had a portrait taken, they were given the photo, and cheap little frames, so that they could take them home. 
Again, giving our families a sense of pride, a sense of family, it was, it was not expensive at all. 
You may already know more books in the home is the most important thing that we can do to help children get ready for kindergarten. 
As a matter of fact, in 2010, reading is fundamental. 
Did a meta analysis of 108 early literacy programs, and found that more books in the home was the most important thing to help children get ready for kindergarten. 
So, this is why it's important to us that we make sure that those kids take books home whenever that they can, again, they are just donated books. 
There is nothing, you know, big, expensive about that, but we were able to add what we called our favorite books program. 
We applied for a grant through the core credit union, just like 1,000 grant, and then, it was 20 books, the title was 20 books for 20 families. 
So, our families had to apply to our program, and tell the program, written down, why you wanted the 20 books for your child. 
And some of the applications were just wonderful, something that the people really showed a need and a desire to have these books in their home. 
So, we had a wonderful time, choosing which books that we wanted to include in the favorite books. 
And we were able to purchase them and give them a little plastic bin to put the books in. 
And then after the families received them after a while, we asked, well, how did you use the books? 
You know, what difference did it make? 
And the answers would just break your heart, one little boy wrote, it's the first time in my life that I have had brand new things. 
Another one said, I put them by my bed every night. 
So, those kinds of answers really shows the impact that you are having on our families. 
We were able to do that for two years, using different sources. 
And the time thing that we do to get books in the home, is the Dolley Parton imagination library. 
We were very fortunate that we had a big donor who wanted her donation in memory of her mother, to go to books for families that can't afford their own books. 
Because so many clients are not from our area at CazCares, I asked her, would it be ok if we did all of Madison county. 
The last thing that we wanted is to tell a parent your child doesn't live in the right community. 
So not only did she agree that the children could, from any part of Madison county could sign up for it, she doubled her donation. 
So, it does not get better than that. 
And if you are not familiar with dolly Parton's imagination library, what it is, is the children sign up from birth, and until their fifth birthday, the child will receive a brand new book in the mail, in their name, every month. 
The books are chosen by educators, and they are appropriate for the age of the child. 
In fact, I had one grandmother tell me, that her little girl, granddaughter would say, did the dolly come? 
Did the dolly come? 
It was not a doll that she was looking for, it was for a book, so CazCares has become a wonderful place to sign up families. 
We also work with community action partnership, which is a, an organization that works with low income families. 
I should mention, though, that dolly Parton wants to make sure that there is no income level associated with her books. 
So, anyone, in the county, can sign up for it. 
We're very proud of that initiative, and we're very pleased that we're able to have that human donation to make it happen. 
>> Betsy, I think I will just jump in before you transition to your next segment because we have got great questions. 
Let me see, there was a question about how you find good sources for funding. 
You mentioned the friends of the library, and I know you mentioned the credit union, the grant, I believe it was for the 20 books, the family library was that through the credit union? 
>> Yes. 
>> Ok. 
>> And then, you have also mentioned that the dolly Parton imagination library. 
Are there other strategies for seeking funding that you can mention? 
>> We have been very fortunate that say I mentioned the rug, it was just a conversation with the woman that I was so excited, we were able to you know, start the story room. 
And she was the one who said well, you have to have a rug in there. 
We also have a grant through the women's opportunity community foundation, and this is a real given for the community foundation. 
Our local rotary club has donated four books, and our friends of the library were, were the main source, basically. 
We don't pay any rent at the food pantry. 
That is their donation to us. 
>> That's huge. 
>> It is huge. 
>> There was a question about was CazCares surprised by all of the services and programs that the library had the capacity to provide? 
It's interesting to think about they must have really appreciated it. 
>> Well, this is one of the advantages of coming from a small town. 
The woman who runs CazCares was one of our board presidents. 
15, 20 years ago, so she did know how much we had to offer. 
>> Ok. 
That's wonderful. 
There was a question about if there are other agencies for the families visiting the food pantry, did you have a accepts of services being duplicated? 
How did you understand the services were unique and needed and not necessarily duplicated? 
>> That's a great question. 
In Madison county, a family would have to sign up for a specific food pantry. 
In other words, there is probably about four other food pantries in the county. 
But, to prevent people from going from one food pantry to another, they sign up to go to a specific food pantry in the county. 
And there are no other services like that, besides -- almost all the food pantries are individual nonprofits. 
>> Ok. 
And I think that the other thing that heard you mention, in terms of the trust issue, I think that you talked about the fact that yes, they weren't necessarily coming to the library, you know, partly because they did not know what the library had to offer, maybe also, because they were hesitant or afraid to come to the library, so that whole issue of building trust, of being where they are, I 
can't emphasize that enough, and you talked about it before, as really that was a key to the success of the program. 
>> Absolutely. 
Someone asked at the conference, did you have lots more people than the library as a result of the outreach? 
I am sorry to say, no. 
And I think if we know how a person in poverty feels about -- for them, taking out a library book is another stress. 
They have to worry about, is it going to get lost? 
Is the dog going to eat it? 
Am I, you know, am I going to be late getting it back? 
And frankly, they don't need that extra stress so that's why giving the books to them eliminates that stress. 
The adults getting tutored at the library, one of the requirements is that they get a library card, and some of those learners have been using the library much more. 
>> Excellent. 
Since you touched on the adults there was a question about whether or not you include adults in your summer reading program. 
>> We haven't done that yet, but we would like to. 
One of the things we have done, and I should have mentioned it before, we have books on parenting, and adult books, novels there, and we encourage the parents and grandparents or whoever the caregiver is, a book for themselves so they can show them that read is fun. 
>> That's great. 
And then one more -- two more, someone asked how many children you have enrolled in the dolly Parton inspiration library program? 
>> County-wide, we have 1300. 
That's about 30%. 
>> That's fantastic. 
>> We're aiming for 50. 
>> You are on the right track. 
And there was a question about whether or not you all considered becoming a summer meal site. 
I don't know if that's come up? 
>> We did look into it and I think that that would be a wonderful addition. 
There was some problem about getting a kitchen that was approved by the health department. 
We're going to try again next summer, all the Madison libraries said that we have got to figure it out. 
>> It's interesting because the food pantry doesn't necessarily have that, as well. 
That's good to know. 
I will let you continue on and we'll circle back if there are other questions. 
Keep posting them. 
>> Thank you very much. 
One of the cindy and Carla's things that they think is important is to celebrate achievements, and again, some of these families somewhere little to celebrate, and they organize these wonderful graduation parties when people have received their GED, and they just put out a call to friends of the library, saying, does anyone have a cap and gown that they can loan us for a party to celebrate our GED 
, and now, of course, task graduates. 
So, we had a big party at a neighboring library, and all different color caps and gowns, it didn't matter, but in this picture, I wanted to point out the man at the end who does not have a cap and gown. 
He's a town supervisor at one of the small towns in Madison county, a member of the board of supervisors. 
He approached cindy and said may I speak at your graduation party? 
We said of course. 
And he got up there, and he said I am one of you, I am a high school drop-out. 
And he's now the head therapist at a local hospital. 
That just one thing made such a difference to the people that were new graduates. 
And cindy has an arrangement with the high school, that they have two photography students come to our celebrations, and take formal pictures of our graduates with their diplomas, and they also receive prince of these, here's a mom and her guy used his Rose as a sword. 
This is a man with his family, his kids came. 
This was my favorite. 
You can just see the joy in his face. 
And the pride. 
We wanted to make sure that when we include families, that these children are seeing that their dad thinks that education is important. 
Again, modeling for knows kids. 
Again, collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. 
It takes a lot of people to make this happen. 
We kind of piecemeal it together as we see a need. 
I mentioned the community action partnership, are also our partners. 
And head start, is also a partner. 
We have a good relationship with them. 
And they are right down the road. 
And we have a few more things, and what we have learned? 
We learn from our failures. 
We thought it would be a great idea to approach the local businesses. 
We have a couple of small manufacturing places in the county, and we thought, let's talk to the people there and so if they would let us do the GEDs here or encourage their workers to get a high school equivalency. 
And it took a lot of time and no one followed through with it. 
So that was unfortunate. 
The other things that we have done is -- partnerships can be difficult, they are time consuming but if everyone knows what's expected of the other organization, and it's clearly stated, everything is fine. 
As far as logistics and practicals, you might notice on that top photo, a big storage begin, we discovered that storage was a very important aspect that we had not thought of before. 
For the books donated, for the craft supplies. 
Different things you might need, toys that you want to cycle out, and get fresh ones. 
And I don't think that I mentioned this, but the toys we used, some were from an original grant, the early literacy grant, but many were donated by families, the great train set. 
They have a better train set there than here. 
So there is a Jen Ross whyth that people who donate to CazCares, see the story room and realize that we can use some toys and education material there. 
Just a little kind of practical information, whenever a child comes in the story room, the parent has to sign them in. 
The children know that they have to grab one of those sanitizing wipes that hopefully that will prevent colds and flus from spreading. 
And we also make sure that we have a photo permission form for all of our families because we want to make sure that we can share these photos with you. 
It's important to keep those statistics because when you are going for a grant, you want to make sure that you can say, we gave out 2,000 books last year or 600 children benefited from this program. 
So even though we're not counting circulation, which is our traditional method of measuring our words, we are counting the things like how many books were distributed. 
How many children came, and dividing those up by the age levels really helps you see what your needs are, as well. 
This is an offshoot of what happened at CazCares. 
Our St. James church had a food pantry and mustard seed in Georgetown, which is really in the country. 
And it's a tiny little building, always thought it would be wonderful to do outreach there. 
I knew that they did not have any room. 
So Theresa Hudson, our recent retired teacher, said I would like to do something, and I said if we only had room at the mustard seed. 
Well, she was good friends with the woman who runs the mustard seed for the chump, and she talked to her, and lo and behold the whole upstairs was empty. 
It had been used for -- to have church services, and they no longer used it for that. 
So, we started the program at the mustard seed, and Theresa volunteers her time there, and the people of the church would donate you know, the supplies. 
All she had to do was put something in the bulletin, I needed the kitchen said or shelving. 
She runs it differently. 
She is this one morning a week from 9:00 to 12:00, and the children stay the whole time without a parent. 
She has a half a dozen at a time but really is creating sort of a preschool model there. 
And she is very pleased with the results. 
So as these things go, one thing leads to another, and St. Lucie's is a church in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Syracuse where 62% of the children live in poverty, and one of our library patrons goes out there to work with the bread of life food pantry there. 
So, we have had so many donations. 
We've been able to give them boxes of children's books that they distribute out there. 
We also have a relationship with the woman, infant child program where they come to our library, our community room once a month, today, actually is their day, and they -- their clients come to the library, and while they are waiting, we have toys and books and again, the families take books home. 
We received a grant through a local agency to create three free libraries, one is in the Laundromat, local Laundromat, and one is at, in front of a drugstore. 
And the third one will be very soon, put into the mustard seed in Georgetown. 
Again, these are donated books, and if you are not familiar with little free libraries, they have a great website, it's very fun. 
The books are put in, and they are donated, and people can take a book, they can leave a book. 
We have children's books, adult books, and actually, we're adding on to our little free libraries to make the lower levels, that's easily accessible for children. 
Again, the little free libraries were purchased with a grant, and the books are all donated. 
Every little library has a steward who takes care of it, and checks on it, every -- once a week, minimum, if not two or three times a week. 
We're also -- I have one more thing that just came up. 
We wanted to figure out how could we communicate to the people at CazCares on parenting skills. 
And it turns out, that the too small to fail initiative, part of the Clinton global initiative, has a new program, and you may have heard about it, called text for baby. 
People can sign up to receive text messages from the time they find out that they are pregnant through, I'm not sure, one or two years, where they will receive a text giving information on health information, and literacy information, so we just found out about it but we did not know a lot about it, so Carla signed up as a woman, a pregnant woman due in March, and she's been receiving these texts 
and approves, thinks they are a really wonderful solution on how to reach people. 
We are going to encourage our families to sign up for it. 
There is a new program at Stanford University did, to help children prepare for kindergarten, that has hugely successful, and it's a same type of thing, getting texts, texted to people, and we're following that closely, we think that that's something that we can add. 
To our program, so once you get started, one thing leads to another. 
I talked a lot, and I hope that you all have things to share. 
I am happy to answer any questions. 
>> Wonderful, thank you very much, Betsy, and there are already people chiming in to chat talking about how great it is to see all that you are doing. 
Let's see, there were -- let's go backwards and start with the recent ones so folks are excited about texts for babies, do you know if they are available in other languages? 
>> I don't. 
But, if you go to toosmall.org, all the information is there. 
I do know the phone carriers have agreed -- have data charges for those texts. 
>> That's great. 
Excellent, we'll dive deeper and post the link to toosmall.org. 
Let's see, there was a question about the little free libraries. 
Do you connect the libraries to your library with branding of your library, as well? 
>> Yes. 
>> Ok. 
>> And the, on the side, there is a thing with our logo and thank you to the friends of the library, and that type of thing. 
>> Excellent. 
That's great. 
And you did mention a grant that supported your free libraries, can you repeat that? 
>> Oh, it's a local grant called the common grounds grant. 
>> Excellent, there was a great suggestion when we were talking about summer lunches. 
I just want to verbalize this, as well, that Tammy said that they do summer lunches and partner with the boys and girls club, which does have the proper kitchens, kitchen permissions, and they cook the food and bring it to the summer lunch point. 
So that's another idea for partnerships for sure. 
Let's see here, there was another question about if you receive support from the New York state library, I am guessing someone else from New York is asking that. 
>> No, we don't. 
All of the literacy coordinators are paid through our library budget, and we have a small materials budget. 
We did -- I have forgotten about four years ago we had a fundraiser for literacy that raised 4,000 or 5,000 that we keep in a separate fund whether he ever there is something needed, just a one shot deal. 
It worked out well for us. 
>> Excellent. 
Let's see. 
There was one other question earlier on. 
I thought that was a good one, maybe we did already address it. 
I just -- I think that this is so exciting, and I just have to really commend you, I know that there are other folks out there who have recognized just how innovative relationship you are. 
I know that it seems like the approach that you have taken has been very much as the needs present themselves. 
But really, I like to think of it as whole family literacy. 
You are addressing early literacy, adult literacy, and health literacy, and information literacy, you know, you really are doing great work. 
And I think that this is a perfect example of you have done the -- done it, rolled it out as you have had the capacity or funding, so for those getting started and really picking one or two things that have come up in today's conversation as a way to start, and I think that the similar things will happen for you, as to Betsy's library. 
>> I have to say, it's the most rewarding thing that I have ever done. 
>> That's so great to hear. 
I know you talked about background checks, at the presentation. 
Can you talk a bit about how the background checks work for your volunteers? 
>> Well, we probably should do it, but again, we're a small town, and we know our volunteers. 
They are most retired teachers. 
Probably down the road we'll have to do that, but right now we're ok. 
>> That's good to know. 
If folks have other questions or suggestions, you know, I was also -- I was hoping that maybe folks would feel comfortable sharing some of the examples of what they are doing. 
I am so excited about your idea, and your suggestion of doing this, and a laundries mat. 
Walking around the community, and seeing where people are gathering, and this part of the community does end up at the Laundromat for sure. 
Thinking innovatively and being out there in your community, so let's see, there was a couple folks who joined late, one was asking about clarification about whether or not the adult tutoring happens at the pantry, and you explained some of it does but a lot of it happens at the library. 
Can you talk about that again? 
>> Right. 
Most of the tutoring, adult tutoring happens at the library, but there has been times when it also happened at the other part of that room from the -- where the story room is, and now, yes, the programs are at a neighboring library that's closer to the farm. 
So, at the Woodstock library. 
>> Ok. 
All right. 
And let's see, more on partnering with other education programs, Jan talks about partnering with the county parent education program, and they do a literacy lesson during one of their sessions. 
Mostly for non-native English speakers, and urge them to get library cards, and to talk about other programs. 
So, again, other ways of being in the space, finding comfort zones, familiarity zones and introducing them to other library programs. 
>> Absolutely. 
>> And there was, to respond to the question about the checks as a volunteer, volunteers are never left alone with children, and are always also supervised, so that's a great tip from penny, thank you. 
and I will just -- there are a lot of threats this came up that made me think of other resources and Webinars on Webjunction, and I did post a link to a recent collection of responses, but readers provided in our November poll about services related to wellness and nutrition in their community, so I encourage you to take a look at that. 
For those who don't know, we have also been looking at ways for libraries to support health literacy in their communities, so I will add that information from the health happens in libraries project to the event Page. 
And as always, the partnerships, your mention of partnerships can be challenging. 
We have some great resources, actually, many from [Inaudible] for libraries as well on how to support the effective partnerships. 
So, again, it just is a great intersection of lots of topics, of what you are doing in libraries, so we're really excited. 
Would you please more question from Jen, you said the three days a week, those are mornings, is that correct? 
>> Right, 9:30 to noon. 
>> 9:30 to noon, excellent. 
If folks have other questions, feel free to let us know. 
And we'll post them on the event Page, and thank you again, Betsy, I know to do an encore presentation, takes that much more time but I know you inspired many others, and all those that joined the archive, as well so thank you very much, and thank you to all of you who joined in today and chimed in on chat, and I will be in touch with you later today, once the arcampfire is posted, and we'll send 
you to a short survey, and it would be great to get your feedback on the session, as well as to inform the ongoing programming. 
Within the week I will send you all a certificate for attending today, and again, the archive will be available for anyone else, if you would like to share it with and certificates are available for all of the learning in our learning catalog. 
>> Excellent. 
Thank you very much again, Betsy and everyone. 
Have an excellent day. 
>> Thank you, Jennifer, for everything you have done to make it happen. 
>> Absolutely, thank you, Betsy.