>>> All right. I'm going to go ahead and get our recording started and I'm going to introduce Rebecca who is now an independent consultant, formally of the South Carolina state library and she was kind enough to bring this session to web junction as sort of a part 2 of another webinar we held earlier but there were so many great questions about seed libraries and community refrigerators that she gathered this amazing group of other presenters and I'm going to go ahead and have Rebecca get us started. Welcome, Rebecca. 
>> Thank you so much, Jennifer. 
It's my pleasure to be here with everyone. And I am not going to take a whole lot of time away from the real stars of the presentation. There was so much with food access and addressing food insecurity issues going on across our state and across the nation. Definitely reach out and don't assume that you're starting from scratch. We have been working for about 3.5 years. And that was our way of officially supporting the libraries that were doing work in this area. Through training and circulating mobile kitchen units and whatever it was that our public libraries needed. So we begin that in 2018, we consider it a umbrella under which a multitude fall. 
Everything from cook book clubs to using fruits and VEJ STABLs and story times to talk about vocabulary and colors to outreach events with produce boxes and CSA pick up points at the libraries, whatever it is that the libraries could do and they meet relevant needs. So as you're considering some of these areas of programming for your own library, I want to encourage you again, don't necessarily assume that you know what it is that your community needs until you have gone and talked to them. It may be that they're interested in a community refrigerator and it maybe that you could support a community fridge that's already there with additional programming or information. If you're interested in doing a needs assessment of food access, food insecurity issues in your area, I encourage you to check out the book that was published last year and both are really good for getting started. And with that, there is my contact information if you have any other questions and I want to go ahead and move right into our next presenter, Jennifer? 
>> Fantastic. We're going to go ahead and pass the ball over to Devan Andrews. He comes to us from the Charleston county public library where she is the community engagement associate manager. Welcome devan. 
>> Thank you so much and good afternoon to you all. I'm excited to tell you about the free and fresh program launched in March of this year and when I check out any training or conference session, what I as the listener most want to know is what did you do and how can I do it too? I hope that you'll come away from this with ideas of how this program or something like it might work at your own, it's not necessarily a new idea.
We were inspired to bring this program to the communities that we serve after going to a session in 2019 and shout out it was the library system in rural New York and they currently have ten fridges. So we kept it on our wish list and we had our vision ready to write our proposal. So thankfully our proposal was approved and it would cover funding and most of the cost of the refrigerator itself. And our department budget covered the rest and we chose a glass front bridge so that people could see all of the bright and colorful produce inside and now for where to pilot the fridge program. People tend to think of Charleston in terms of, you know, a tourist spot and vacation spot and of course certain areas are and there are area those areas but there's also areas with many underserved families and individuals in the rural and more urban areas of the county. 
And a lot of barriers for access of healthy foods. We were also in the process of building a community garden for that branch and this library branch was also the recipient of the charlie cart which I'm sure that many of you know is a full mobile kitchen, that's fantastic that was donated to us by our partners at the food bank. So part of the vision for the garden was that we would take the fruits and vegetables from the garden and use those in hands on cooking workshops and and let program attendees learn literacy skills by preparing healthy fruits and vegetables and by trying these recipes and especially if you have a certain fruit or vegetable, hopefully they would make it part of their diet. And knowing that food insecurity and healthy foods exist in that area, and it would be the natural fit to also have the fringe where people could access free, fresh food to take home with them. Now, so the fridge is the easy part. In the grand scheme of things, it's going to be less costly than the produce to stock it. We have a wonderful relationship as I mentioned with our friends at the food bank that serve a large region of our state and we worked with them before on such initiatives as our summer meals, using their charlie cart program for food literacy programming outside of the one they gave us and also doing free produce distribution and as I mentioned, they also gave us the charlie cart that lives there. So we have a fantastic relationship with them and they knew that we were on the hunt for organizations that could provide produce for the fringe we wanted to launch. And also a series of produce giveaways with us at some of our branches. We didn't want to purchase the fridge because who wants to look at a fridge in this beautiful new library. We ordered the fridge to get it shipped to the branch and get everything ready to launch. So the food bank orders and receives the produce from a local farm. They pick up produce ZLIF RIs twice a week from the food bank and then our wonderful route delivery drivers, the ones that take all of them for holds and take all the regular library materials they deliver the produce to the St. Paul's library as part of their regular route. The demand was tremendous. You might even say it was bananas. That's probably my one joke. Thank you. So the demand is tremendous in the initial launch and while it's still super popular for us and the library system, once people realized that the program is on going and not a one and done deal and so they can consistently rely on this and that produce has an end date so you're going to only have that little window once they become known and know that produce is going to go bad I think that you'll find as we did that people are going to self-regulate and then you can also by not having any requirements, you can let people take food from the fridge without having to interstate with act about how much they're taking which reduces any shame or stigma about accessing the fridge. Also in letting people maintain dignity and we also consulted the food bank to get their thoughts on where it could be located in the library because we want it to be visible and also privacy and not feel like they were in a spotlight. 
So it's of course not. And we have it near our vending machine area and we work to get little sinage and it guides people and directs them but lets people access it without feeling like they're under a microscope. It means people that aren't experiencing food insecurity might access the fridge. It's not about doing a breakdown of someone's finances and say they could really afford it. We know that some of the existing health conditions and things like obesity such as hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, that those are linked to or exacerbated by a diet that is lacking in health and nutrition. Therefore, if a person is taking those, that likely means that they or someone in their household is going to eat that and for me, and that's a win in and of itself. It's obviously going to be a financial barrier. Other barriers could be related to lack of time and how readily available something is. They may be at the library borrowing materials, using our computers. 
Reusing one of the many other resources that they offer and have the opportunity to add healthy foods while they're there. And as I said, bananas. 
We gave away 867 pounds of produce. The food bank was amazing. They knew we were expecting a big launch. They restocked it twice during that day. It demand was tremendous. 
We have other programs and services that might be useful to those accessing the fridge like the after school program, and also how to store and prepare. I just learned how it works a few weeks ago. So anyway, that's information that is welcome by many. And also on the same sheets, these handouts that have how to store and prepare, it also has recipe ideas. I've got this, now what do I do with it? 
And again as regular programs resume, we can actually let people prepare and taste test the fruits and vegetables as well. We'll encourage them to give it a try and take some home and make them for themselves or their families. It was scheduled to open in March of 2020 and like many of our other library branches, they resumed or started -- the first time they started services back in June, 2020, slowly resuming curbside and opening to the public in some capacity but of course never got to have the big, grand opening like our other new branches. So many people in the community didn't know that we had opened or even that there was a library there. So we have many people that found this for the first time as a result of the promotion of the fridge program and word of mouth and of course the actual promotion that we did and the other produce giveaways that we had. So of course many of these people, they signed up for library cards and we were then able to also connect them with the other resources and amazing things that libraries have to offer. 
And I'm pleased to share here that as recently as last week, we learned that we will have the funding needed to not only continue this program at St. 
Paul's library, but also to expand this program to two of our other library branches as well. So I am over the moon about that. About getting to expand this fantastic program. 
>> So I will be brief but I can't overstate the importance of libraries being at the table and joining groups made of stakeholders and members of the community that work toward improving their communities. And so that folks already know what the library already does I don't need to tell many how often you find yourself talking to someone and people are amazed and they say I didn't know that the library did that and remind them of the work beyond checking out books. And lead to the development of so many other programs. And particular, many pantries are open one day a week and ours are a natural fit and they're open, we're open evenings and on Saturdays, and we give people more access. And they'll likely be driven as we are by a desire to build healthier communities. But if you're appealing to decision makers, we know that the cost of providing healthy food to people is a fraction of what it costs to treat or manage the health conditions that result from not having access to good foods, right? 
And prevent cancer and reduce the rates of diabetes and a number of other positive health outcomes. So diseases related to diets like this cause health care costs to skyrocket. It's a win for communities. So if the sheer good will works hopefully that will help too. All right. 
Let's see and usually now and now it's consistently stocked twice a week so it's still used but a little more lush with all the great produce in there and on the left you'll see the other traditional info that we had and of course we also promoted things like our after school snack program. I'll end by sharing that we supplement the fridge, the produce provided by the food bank is supplemented by the fruits and vegetables in the community garden and hopefully that's a wonderful segway and we have a short window for questions. More time for questions at the end, but just in case, we don't get to your question, my e-mail is there. My name is Devan. Reach out to me with any questions or anything that might be useful in getting some of this going because it's truly one of my favorite projectsprojects. 
>> Thank you that's so great to see and hear and I didn't see any specific questions come through and we'll encourage folks if you have questions you can post them. 
>> He is the library director and we're so glad that you're here. Welcome heath. 
>> Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Today I wanted to share a little bit about my personal experiences and observations in creating a seed library from scratch with very limited resources. But before that, quickly, I wanted to give you some information about our county Saluda, South Carolina is one of the smaller in size and population. And unfortunately we're limited on our programming opportunities because of our size. But with this community the choice is very simple to me.
So I researched the dos and don'ts and icon colluded that in a small town with limited resources, limited space, limited staffing I didn't want to overthink the idea and I'd like to share that with you today. Everyone's goal might be similar or very specific. 
Increasing access to crops and educating the public while also protecting heritage varieties. 
Next, finding a location for your seed library and deciding on how it will be displayed is of course an essential function.
Like many libraries, Saluda had an old card catalog and I repurchased it into our seed library. I've seen many variations and this worked best for us. If you just search and google or Amazon, hard file media catalog, do put that in your search function. You'll find similar card catalog options that you use. I chose to purchase my seeds from retailers. Walmart and Dollar General. I spend $400 on 15 packs of each 30 different varieties of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers. My future plans are to seek agencies to partner with in order to make the program more self-sustainable. A lot of times the packs that we purchased for 2 for $1 or I think at the most we spent just under $2 per pack and we would take those individual packs and break them down and put them into coin sized envelopes and each averaged to make it easy for me budget-wise. So other than the seeds, you'd need to again, you got coin sized envelopes to store the seeds, some labels and storage boxes to keep the extra seeds and all of that costs less than $100 for us so the entire seed library was under $500. 
>> Once you got all of your materials, you need to have information on how to properly grow the seeds for your library.
Most provide you on the pack, basic information. But if you wanted more information on the planting specific plants and specific information on how to plant in your region, I suggest contacting your local university. If you have one around or your local government soil and water district which can provide you with most of the information that you need. In South Carolina, we have wonderful agency called the Clemson university extension, they're placed all over the state. They were tremendous in helping us have information. 
They did all the work for us. We just have to access it and put it out for the public to use. 
>> Next, you're looking at your policies. You need to decide on the rules for your seed library.
Every library that I visited had different sets of rules and regulations. Decide what works best for you. I decided to limit patrons to 5 per week and we police this with a small form. 
They must fill out, they asked name, date and library card none and the number they have taken. 
They're policed by the honor system. So similar to the wide variety of rules and regulations each has data collection could be something that is very simple. I just encourage you to ask yourself why do I need this rule or regulation and why do I need this data. These questions can help you prevent making things unnecessarily difficult. 
This was the trap that I fell into. It took me longer than I think it should have taken when I was trying to decide how we should do the seed library. I'll answer everything that I can. 
>> I'll have you answer one question now. Why did you choose library members only to have access as opposed to everyone? 
>> Everybody can access it. We just requested a library card. 
This gives us the opportunity to inquire if they have one and it allows us to give them that opportunity to get a library card. Our library cards are free of charge for anybody in the community. If somebody states they do not have one, we do not tell them they cannot get any seeds. We do not deter them. 
It's honor system. They can walk out with seeds whether they want to or not. It just opens up that avenue for us to discuss library cards. 
>> That's a good approach. 
>> Thank you for having me. I'm excited to share this with you guys. I'm from fairfield county which is a little tiny town right above the capitol of South Carolina. We're about 30 minutes away from Columbia, but we are still one of the smallest counts in the state. So, this is that little red square is where we are. This is just kind of some of the demographics. We have on average about 22,000 people within the county you can see the unemployment rate and the poverty rate are both more than double the national average and then we look at food security and 21% of the community is food insecure. Look at that closer, 63% of those that are food insecure live below this threshold for poverty. And we are coming up on our second year of operation. We also used an old card catalog and as you can see and so we had 41 different types of seeds. What we did to determine what seeds we WACHBTed is we talked to our community. 
We asked them what they are most likely to use. What also really helped and this is not something that is available to everyone but my library director what has a horticulture degree. And we utilize the seed university and leaned on that to really promote healthy eating and then we also talked to our local garden clubs and they were the ones that were kind of the backbone of getting the word out and and that's one thing that we do a little bit differently. We asked that people that take seeds and they harvest seeds from the crops that they have planted. They return seeds back to the seed library for others to use. 
That's a long-term goal is that this is something that can be self-sustaining as long as our patrons are returning seeds we don't have to necessarily keep buying or asking for donations of such a large number of seeds every time we have to refill it.
And we kept everything nice and simple because the literacy rate in our county is not the highest. And it's that bag full of little tiny seed packets and a short instruction guide on how to propagate the seeds. 
I'm going to answer some of these really quick. Can you specify what do you mean, how do we prepare for any concerns? So I'm guessing that means like, okay. So what we do -- 
>> I'd say, you can also -- I'm thinking maybe I'll keep collecting the questions and we might circle back after Jimmy. 
>> Okay. Great. 
>> This is what I ask myself when beginning the project. What we did is -- what's out there that can help me so I don't have to shoulder the full funding of this project? We did -- we focused really heavily on snap-ED and Clemson extension. 
Many schools, universities have agricultural programs and there's also your local farmers and your local farmer's markets are great option. And don't forget your gardening clubs, community gardens, anything that one person can help shoulder a little bit of the responsibility. 
>> We're going to go ahead and circle back because I know that Jimmy has answers to some of these in his presentation. Jimmy comes to us as the community manager at the Greenville county library system in South Carolina. Welcome, Jimmy. 
>> Good afternoon, everyone. And our goal is to assist you in creating the buy in from your organization stakeholders and to give you a little bit of perspective as well, we're located in the western portion of the state of South Carolina. 
According to the 2010 census, we had 451,000 residents in Greenville County alone and that number has grown to just over 520,000. So maybe, a little different than other panelists that have been on the call today so just kind of shows you a different variety of options that we have. And I did want to share that one of the goals for today is actually when you're creating that buy in, to understand more from the consumer or your patrons point of view. The different access to different heirloom seeds, flowering seeds, and native plants, not necessarily fruits and vegetables. We work to provide education on sustainability and growing food, flowers and native plants and to increase food production and promote a healthy diet. To help preserve plant diversity with regional and heirloom varieties and to promote backyard conservation practices to protect Greenville's natural resources. 
>> This is our website and graphics throughout the presentation that will be used that we're creating specifically for the state library. So one of the main goals that we have -- 
we want to help you get your program off the ground. So what that looks like for us is again with the water conservation district, to look outside of this untraditional partners. 
This could be things either through government and also there's your APA, the environmental protection agency.
Look for garden club meetings, master gardeners, a different sustainability groups, native plant societies, 4-H, maybe in the future farmers of America, all in your community. And it will look different in your area and your community and also, for us, it's a really good way to incorporate the use of volunteers. And when it comes down to the distribution of the packets there's different ways that you can incorporate volunteers to do that for your library system. We dedicated space and distribution channels.
It can fit on a very limited floor space. Ours is a 60 drawer card catalog that was recycle and repurposed and we have a picture of that coming up. It could also be done electronically. If you're thinking my library is tight on floor space or I can't put anything else in a major aisle way or if I take something away to make room for it there's ways that you can have it done electronically. So with an online request form and it will be sent to the branch circulation desk for pick up. 
These are your drawer labels and growing guides. And your climates and it's on the previous slide there. And it's information that you put on your website about it and manners and signs and posters and even for your circulation desks. And these are the top five seeds that you can plant this month. 
And this is to caption more attention and to get outreach opportunities for the library system and additionally, I'll also recommend playing a kick off event and you can intentionally plan it. So moving on, we encourage you to dig a little bit deeper. This is our card catalog that's located at the branch in Greenville South Carolina. It is a 60 drawer repurpose card catalog and in there, the seed packets were all handwritten with a variety of donated and purchased seeds. We also had the logo and branding on there. I'm not going to test your eyesight here but the information here on the bottom of the slide, this is all the information that we provide to our consumers. This is information such as times the year to plant the seeds. And so the check marks of when you can place the seeds in the ground, it says that you have deep to plant the seed or the seed needs full sun, partial sun, or shade, how far to space them apart. 
It's the average time frame for your climates and and that's the flavor potential. Once you have done all the hard wonderful work, next you just sit back and watch it all fall in place and watch it grow. So there's a lot of behind the scenes on the business side as well that we wanted to keep in mind. The inventory tracking is something that we have with a shared resource partner just to give you a general idea, within the first three weeks of the program, when it launched in February of 2019, we had 2,200 seed packets that were distributed and last year, even though we were closed during the pandemic, we had 18,200 with a peak distribution of 5,600 during a mail in process for our male delivery program that we started. We did talk about distribution limits. We had for our library system, 10 packets per seed per visit. If that patron wants to come back and get seeds they can do that as well. Also one of the you anemic features with the Greenville county library system is our bookmobile and we have designated space on board. So it's a 16 inch file metal storage cabinet that has different dividers in there. We have a rotation of seeds that vary based on the growing season. It's displayed next to cookbooks, new transition, gardening, sustainability, all peaked because of the library and people coming for that purpose. So the bookmobile visits different rural areas and is increased that the circulation of those materials and really has the possibility of remote programming so maybe you can have a partner come to your bookmobile stop or when you do some outreach, go into different craft fairs and gardening club meetings to talk about free access to -- to talk about the pollenators that are a part of the program or talk about the bees that are apart of nourishing the plants for them to grow. A lot to keep in mind and it's a great opportunity and you can also see on the far right here, that's a picture of my personal library card but those are the graphics that we had that also meet the top banner. That's our library card and it's been a popular design since we introduced it in February of 2019. So here, I have kind of labeled some different opportunities for you to consider. And it's a big contributor to programs that we have initiated and are continuing to do. In the upper right hand corner, that is a picture of a library card holder's personal garden. Those are seeds that were planted so it's a unique opportunity and this is a link to the website Greenvillelibrary.org/seed-
library and we will be happy to answer any questions from the panel. We'll turn it back to you. 
>> Thank you so much. People are really excited to see all of your great work. There were a lot of questions about the aspect of the packaging. There were questions about, you know, how do you package it? How do you decide on how many seeds to include somebody said carrot seeds are causing me stress. And how do you deal with the small seeds and the number of seeds and in addition to that, do you have a favorite way to measure them? Do you use measuring spoons with the tiny seeds? 
Let's start with Jimmy and we can get input from the rest of them. 
>> I would recommend that seeds are going to vary by size, whether that's corn, tomatoes or the tiny little celery seed and mustard seed, they will vary. If it's going to be a larger seed it would be 6 or 7. You want to make sure which is easier said than done sometimes and find out the hard way and I think it's a good idea to use a measuring spoon and and they're going to be by seed type or patience. Do you have any input on the processes? 
>> I do. I think it depends on the size of your library and and what the patrons need. Because you're so small we can afford to not be so exact. And get the seeds into the community and while we are tracking how many people visit the library we aren't necessarily with all types of seeds. 
>> Okay that's really helpful. 
Anything addition on the packing process. Because we went the avenue of big box stores I split the seed packets in half no matter the size and that's how I got the quantity. It's a large seed you only put one per hole and a smaller seed you put three seeds per destination per hole and it almost didn't matter because if somebody wanted more seeds, they would just get more seed packets. So I wouldn't stress it. I would just decide best for you financially and I put them in packets because they allow my seeds to go a little bit further. 
>> Excellent. That's great. 
>> There's been people asking if you just do heirloom seeds or hybrid. I can't remember if South Carolina has state laws around seed libraries but there is a great article in and I encourage folks to reach out to your extension organizations and they'll also know the guidelines for your state but does anyone want to talk about the specific seeds, if they are taking donated seeds, what those guidelines are for your patrons?
>> I'll just follow up really quickly. 
>> That is the best place to start. It's different from state to state but they will know. 
>> Excellent. I'll put that back in chat as well. 
>> There's a lot of links coming through chat. Know that those will also all be available on the event page as well. Back to sort of getting started and if anyone had any resistance, do you warrant to talk about how you overcame the concerns that someone had? Also someone mentioned health liabilities as apart of that concern. 
>> I can talk a little bit about that. So I'm going to go back really quick to one of my slides. There we go. Can everybody see that? Jennifer? 
Okay. So on the right here, I just used a regular ziplock bag that tells me what is in it. On the back of that is a date. And that's the date that I purchased the seeds and that helps me track how long the seeds have been in the library. My director has a horticulture degree. So I let him know how long the seed will be viable for but it's easy to look up their life spans and keep track. And I wrote the exact date that they came into the library. 
>> Perfect. That's great. 
There's definitely a lot of people have a lot of questions and I would ask that those of you that have experience in this area feel free to chime in as well and know that all of that great contribution will be available to review in chat as well. Let's see. There was a request. I'm not surprised by this. 1347B mentioned how great your packet template is and I don't know if you'd all be willing to share a file with that template but I can add that to the event page if so. 
>> That was a great question about whether they're open year around which is different for us because they're South Carolina and we grow year around but -- 
>> That is a great question. I know some folks are more atuned to the seasonal aspects of it but if anyone wants to chime in on year around and chat if anyone is doing their year around programs. It sounds like because your growing season is so unlimited. Do you want to talk about how you shift your programming? I think Jimmy or heath talked about February and April in terms of programming. 
>> We have programs that go year around as well as virtually and they're on our Youtube channel as well. And you can see content on how to harvest whenever your plants are -- when it's not the harvest then and it was created by our graphic designer and our staff here at the library system. I think that it will be great to have information. And there's 30 or 40 different varieties of just those that we would have based on and it will be so many different printer labels and stickers and adding them to each individual packet that you may as well go ahead and spend that same amount of time handwriting the varieties and I think it puts a little nice touch on this is coming from real people that do this work. Somebody asked earlier if anybody makes their own as well.
Thanks for putting the Youtube channel in there. We can look at those videoings later on as well. Let's see, let me know if you have other questions or things that have come to mind. 
>> One question that we haven't addressed at, as far as Howell the seeds last or whether you have dealt with my spoilage concerns or something like that.
>> We personally have it because of how fast the seeds are being taken out. We're having more trouble keeping them in stock than we are trying to worry about spoilage. However, like I said earlier, we do keep track of the dates and we know how long their life span is, how long that they are viable. So but just because I think at that point you don't want to offer seeds that way you're offering things that you know will go out and things that may or may not be super popular. 
>> Okay. One of you mentioned return seeds. Can you talk about how you figured that out and I can't remember which of you talked about that but in terms of seeds that are being donated or returned, let's hear any of your practices or policies around that. That's me again. 
When it comes to return seeds, at this point, that is a long-term plan. It's only two years old. We are still relying on seeds that were donated from the Clemson extension or that we purchased ourselves. We had a couple of people bring in seeds.
We make sure that the seeds are clean and we rinse them off a little bit. And we made a note on that bag that those seeds had been brought from another patron. 
>> Lots of notes for communication I'm sure. 
>> Right. Well, we are at the top of the hour and it's so fun to do these sessions that dive so deeply into this work. So I know there's a lot of information for people to absorb and I encourage you all to take a look at the learner guide and feel free to edit and adapt it based on your next steps. And I'll also send you a certificate for attending if you're in this room. And we also send you for a short survey as you leave that we'll use to collect your feedback and share it with the presenters and it helps us in the on going programming. Thank you to our captioner as well and you all have a fantastic rest of your week and good luck with your seed libraries and your community refrigerators. 


>> Thank you, everyone.