 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's fine. We do record the show as we are doing today, and it is then posted to our website and our archives later for you to watch at your convenience. We, both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch, so please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think may be interested in any of the topics we have on the show. The Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries in Nebraska, and that is for all types of libraries. So we will have things on our show that are for K-12, public libraries, academics, museums, correction facilities, anything that's a library. There could potentially be something on our show that would be of interest to you. We do a mixture of types of presentations on the show as well, book reviews, interviews, mini-training sessions, demos of projects and services sometimes, short demos of course when we're only an hour long show. So something for everyone in the library world, we hope. We do have Nebraska Library Commission staff sometimes come on and do presentations about things we were doing specifically here at the commission, things, services, programs and products we provide, but we also bring in guest speakers, and that's what we have this morning. Somebody with us joining us is Noah Lenstra. Good morning, Noah. Hello. Good morning. And he is joining us from North Carolina. He's an assistant professor of library and information science at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and, and that's what he's speaking more about today, director of the Let's Move in Libraries movement, which is all about the getting in shape, eating well, the things we all should be doing no matter what. And Noah has been done presentation for us previously, not in Encompass Live, but on our big talk from Small Libraries annual online conference that we do. And this is a session that he did actually earlier this year at the Association for Real and Small Libraries conference, right? Yep. Yep, that's right. I've been attending a lot of conferences and things this year, trying to remember where I was yesterday. And I thought it was a great topic, a great session. I was unable to attend it that at conference. But I invited him to come on here and to share about how we can use these resources in our libraries. So I'm just going to hand it over to you Noah to take it away. Great. Thanks, Krista. And so I'm really excited to be able to share this hour with you, talking about how libraries can feed America and my focus is in particular on small and rural libraries, which is really the main focus of my research. But I think a lot of the ideas are also applicable in urban and suburban libraries, and I'll be kind of weaving some examples from different types of libraries throughout the presentation. But really the main focus of today's session is not so much how you by yourself can feed America. It's really more about how you can use different partnerships in your communities and in your regions. And I'm going to focus in particular a little bit later on about how you can work with your local extension agents, which are part of the US Department of Agriculture. And within that, that includes everything from master gardeners to 4-H and others, the partners you can work with to make a difference and to feed America. And so let's go ahead and dive right in. And I want to start really by highlighting what is an amazing Encompass Live webinar from earlier this year entitled, How Does Your Library Garden Grow, presented by the librarian from Beatrice Public Library in Nebraska. And I thought this is just such a creative idea. So like a lot of libraries, they have seeds, a seed collection that you can check out from the library. And I thought what a great idea to actually have an exhibit in the Gage County Fair. So best, best produce grown with seeds from the library. Amazing. This is exactly the type of creativity kind of partnership that I think is really just absolutely incredible. Just really shows kind of the type of creative thinking I think we need more of. And so I also want to emphasize that when you're doing things about food, you're also contributing to the library's mission to support lifelong learning. And so this is a message from the Culinary Literacy Toolkit created by the Public Library in Philadelphia, which I have linked in a handout. Let me really quickly put that link into, sorry about this. I had it pulled up and then I closed out of it. But if you want to access the different resources that I'm talking about in my presentation, I'm going to go ahead and put a link here. I have a handout on my website that you can download with live links to the different resources that I'll be discussing, including this toolkit. But really, so they say that cooking and eating are educational acts. And so what they mean by that is that when you're talking about how food and librarianship relate, talk about how people can learn through cooking and through eating and there's just so much involved with cooking and eating that I think really connect the library's mission to support lifelong learning. And there's also just some more kind of sobering reasons why this is important for libraries to be doing. So as I said, three quarters of the counties with the highest rates of food insecurity are in rural areas. One in eight Americans do not have access to adequate amounts of nutritious food. And now there's over $16,000 general stores in the U.S. And these are quickly becoming a primary source of food for many rural Americans, as well as urban Americans where we're seeing a rise in dollar discount stores, family dollar in particular, and urban communities. And so this is really becoming a crisis. And I think it's most communities really need some help. And I think libraries can really play a part. And so I just wanted to highlight a few recent articles. The New York Times actually published an article yesterday entitled Farm Country Feeds America, but just try buying groceries there about how lots of grocery stores in small towns across the country are, again, as I said, being replaced by family dollar or dollar generals. And there's a lot of innovation that's happening across the country to address these food insecurity issues. And so what that means is that there's lots of potential partnerships, lots of people that you can reach out to and work with in your libraries to address this issue. And in particular, I want to just emphasize that I think, of course, when we think about meals and food in libraries, many of us think about children and some are meals during some are reading. But I think it's also important to point out that food insecurity is especially profound among our aging population, our senior citizens. And so, yeah, and particularly in my region in the Southeast, this problem is especially profound. So when you're thinking about food, make sure you're thinking about all ages and not only children. So with that kind of sobering note to kind of stress the importance of this issue, I now want to highlight four things that we can do in our library. So we know this is the problem. We know that this really connects to our core missions of supporting lifelong learning. What can we do? So the first thing that I've seen libraries do in my research is to simply distribute food. Did you know that over 1000 public libraries across the US and actually it's now over 2000? And I just looked at the most recent data as of 2009 over 2000 public libraries across the US service summer meal sites in the US Department of Agriculture, Summer Feeding Program. It's true and you probably can as well. And just if you're able to, I'd love to hear. If you and your library are a summer feeding site, I'd love to hear that in the chat. But you probably can as well. And so I'd like to make a big plug for a new resource guide that was put out by the Collaborative Summer Library Program, which I have on my handout on the website that has a lot of great information about how to get started participating in this National Initiative. And in California, this is the logo of the Lunch at the Library Program, where they have a statewide initiative to encourage more public libraries to take advantage of this free opportunity to provide free meals during the summer months through participating in the Summer Feeding Program. But there's other opportunities to distribute food at your libraries beyond the USDA Summer Feeding Program. So other libraries are working with their local food banks and other local partners to distribute food. So I particularly want to highlight the little free pantry model. And so if you just do a search for a little free pantry, you'll see a lot of examples. This is a particular photo of a little free pantry in a public library in Canada. And really the idea, I'm sorry. I say that's a great idea. I like that. Some of the little free libraries, yeah. And so it's an international movement and really the slogan is take what you need, give what you can. And so this is kind of a kind of a grassroots simple thing you can do. Maybe you could get your local high school students in the vocational training program to construct a little free pantry for you. Another opportunity is to team up with your local food pantry in United Way, which is what they did in Pendleton, Indiana, where they worked with the local foundation to create this read and feed, hybrid food pantry bookmobile. So if you go, if you were to open the doors of this little trailer, half of it is food and half of it is books. And so it goes around distributing both food and books throughout the area that the Pendleton Community Library serves. And so again, the power of partnerships, the library couldn't do this on its own, but teaming up with others, you kind of are able to do things that you wouldn't be able to do on your own. And if you want to get started. We do have a comment, actually, about the read and feed there. Okay. Let's see. Can I see that? No, it's in the questions part, but I'll read it here for you. Someone says here that the summer read and feed is booming in the libraries in Charlotte County, Florida. And we have also extended the program to during school holidays, spring break, winter break, whenever possible too. So not just during the summer. Yeah, that's great. I love that. That's wonderful to hear. Charlotte County, Florida. Thank you so much for sharing that. And so wonderful. Yeah, really, really great to hear. And if you want to get started distributing food at your library, the number one advice that I would make is to keep it simple. You don't need to necessarily start with some elaborate. You don't need to start and go out and build a new bookmobile. You can keep it simple and do something like this library in Clive, or Clive, Iowa did, where they simply put up a folding table during the summer gardening period. And they called it the veggie exchange. And so it's just a table in the foyer of the library. Community members who garden are encouraged to bring in access produce. And other residents can come in and take veggies. And it's just it's that simple. It's not. And so if you want to start, do keep it simple. And I'll talk a little bit more in a minute about liability, because I think that's sometimes a concern, but there's some ways to make sure that you're playing it safe. When you when you're distributing food as well. And as I mentioned, don't forget older adults. So when you're distributing food, I wanted to highlight these are two libraries, one in Indiana and one in Iowa, that actually serve meals for older adults during during the outside of the summer. So things get a little bit crazy in the library, as most places do during the summer months, but during the fall, winter and spring, you can come down to the library and Marianne. Iowa and in Thorntown, Indiana, and get a hot, nutritious meal at the library. And so in Indiana, they have a suggested donation of $3 and Marianne is completely free. But in both instances, they they're able to offer the service through a partnership with the area agency on aging, as well as local grocery stores that donate food. And so, yeah, so don't when you're thinking about things. Again, think about your elderly population as well. So that's distributing food at the library. So the second tactic that I've seen libraries do to help feed America is to support community agriculture. And so a quick show of hands. I'm not sure if I'll be able to see this, but do any of you have seed libraries at your libraries? You should be able to use the raise hand option on your go to webinar interface. So let us know if you have a are doing seed, seed sharing seed libraries. Yeah, and so is your picture there with the one using the old card catalog? I think that's great. Same thing that that Beatrice Library, Public Library in Nebraska that you mentioned before was doing as well. It's it's perfect for that. Yeah, the old card catalog is a perfect size. And I've seen this in dozens of libraries. This particular photo is from the Pima library in Tucson, Arizona. But I've seen I've seen this in dozens of different libraries. Yeah, I mean, the card catalog is a perfect size to put what feeds into seed packets. And so again, in most cases, libraries that are doing this are doing it at no cost to themselves. The seeds are typically donated. And so oftentimes, if you tell people you want to start doing this, more often than not, you'll find find people that are more than willing to donate each to help you get started. The second thing that libraries do to support community agriculture is to organize gardens. So if you have any green space around your library, that's a perfect place to start a garden. This is an example from Miami, Oklahoma. And the image on the right comes from the Walkertown Library here in North Carolina, where the library in 2012 worked with a local gardening group to install these raised bed gardens. And again, at no cost to the library. And so every summer, community members are able to check out a plot. And so there's a big demand for these plots. So if people don't maintain their plots, they lose it. And so that's how they keep the momentum going. People want these plots. People want a space to garden. So if you're not out there maintaining your garden, it goes to the next person on the list. And so they recently expanded, I think they're now up to 22 plots. But this is a small town of 6,000 people. And yeah, they found that there was just such a big demand for a space to garden. And the library had the space. So why not start a garden? And if you want to get started in this, I did a presentation this May with the public library in Perthin County here in North Carolina. And so she really laid out the library that I worked with kind of created a sample budget showing how they did it, how they started their grow it in Perthin County, North Carolina. And really, again, it's no secret it comes down to partnerships. These are all the different partners that they worked with at this library. And they really got this started through community conversations. So they invited people to come to the library. Hey, we're thinking about starting a garden. What do you all think? Do you all want to work with us to make it happen? And they did. I mean, it's again, I think when you're thinking about feeding America, it's all about partnerships and relationships. I can't stress that enough. There's really no secret to that. And so again, gardening at the library at the community thing, you can think of here's a photo of the community coming together to launch a community garden at Hancock County Public Library in Greenfield, Indiana. We're a little bit warmer here in North Carolina and the library in Catawba County, North Carolina is actually doing a community garden day this Saturday. So this Saturday from 9 to 12, community members are invited to come on down to the library in Newton, North Carolina and help the library kind of prepare the garden for the winter. Get things, yeah, let's close it out. But again, kind of the more you can involve your community members of all ages, here's a photo of the community garden in Cleveland, Ohio. So what a great opportunity to support intergenerational bonding connections and to really just foster community in addition to, of course, growing some healthy, nutritious food that you can donate to food pantries or use. If you're doing a cooking class, you can use the food from your garden for that class, just the opportunities are endless. So I can't emphasize enough how I love the garden at the library, but but as I mentioned, so what do you do with that food. So one thing you can do with that food is start start supporting healthy eating by having cooking classes. So this image on the left in Crandon, Wisconsin, the library organized what they called an iron chef, healthy fruits and vegetables edition to see which families could make the best tasting dishes using healthy ingredients, all of which were donated by various partners. And to actually so they didn't have a space at the library to do this so they actually teamed up with the local school and were able to take over the school's cafeteria for a Saturday. Or I guess a Monday, rather, to do this program. And so other partners included the local health department, restaurants, the celebrity judges were the chefs at local restaurants. And everyone, yeah, it was a lot of fun for everyone so participants were given 30 minutes to create a unique panini dish using an eggplant and other pantry items provided by the library and their partners. The library was also able to display more than 25 items from their collections related to cooking and nutrition as part of the event. 15 competitors developed culinary creations and each took home a panini maker donated by the health department. The grand prize winner took home a ninja blender donated by a local nonprofit. Nice. So again, power of partnerships. I can't there's no secret there's no there's no secret thought that's just getting out there kind of drumming up those partners and people want this to happen. There's so many partners everyone from the area agency and aging health department extension. But anyhow, as I said the program success depended upon the dense web of partnerships that the library had developed and fostered, much like a gardener over the years. Owing to these partnerships the library three full time staff members were able to efficiently plan and deliver a healthy living game centered on increasing nutritional knowledge. Everyone involved took a very hands on approach, including shopping for and prepping the fresh ingredients. Before the event planners walk through the participant experience and start to finish and consider details such as how to set up the cafeteria, which rules would be provided and the criteria used for judging. The librarian responsible for the program said thinking about all aspects of the participant experience enabled community members to connect engage and learn in an atmosphere of positive collaboration. And I have on the handout a link with more information about this program that was prepared by OCLC web junction as part of their health happens and libraries initiative. And you can do this on the road as well so this is an example of a library in New Jersey, which goes around and does kind of pop up cooking classes at stops that the book mobile makes in various places. And I want to make a quick plug I don't have let me see how I do have a slide for it I'm getting ahead of myself. Before I get to what I wanted to say I also just wanted to say that if you don't have a kitchen. That's not not really a problem teach whatever you can cook. And so you don't have to be a culinary wizard to start to start teaching people how to cook. So I want to thank Clancy pool for sharing this photo and story with me from her library. Clancy is the branch manager of the St. John branch of the Whitman County library which serves the population of 537 in Washington state. Her cooking classes for teens and tweens occurs off site in a church kitchen where they have the facilities needed to successfully run the class. A church member always checks in before and after the program. And normally the church would charge a cleaning fee for a public event, but they waive that fee because the library always leaves everything the way they found out. This is a program offered every month during the summer, but the library has occasionally held them during school vacations as well. Clancy told me we've had decent luck getting small grants to support these programs from banks and community development agencies. The program in this picture was supported by a memorial donation. The donors, the people that gave the money to the library to to enable them to offer this program said quote grandma was a great cook and always said it was too bad that nobody knows how to fix a meal from scratch anymore. So if you can appeal to popular desire to spread culinary literacy as a basic life skill, you too will probably be able to build support around your library's cooking programs. The sad fact is that many Americans of all ages have not had the opportunity to learn about even basic food preparation before even fewer Americans understand where food comes from. So even simple things that you can do with minimal equipment may be completely eye-opening and transformative. And finally, when you think about partners, also think about fellow librarians. So quick question. I won't, I'm not sure if I'll be able to see a responsive, but if you can raise your hand, has anyone ever heard of the Charlie Cart project? Charlie Cart. Yeah, if you've heard of it, raise your hand or comment in the question section. Let us know. I have not heard of that one myself now. Okay, well I'll give a brief. So briefly the Charlie Cart, so it started in school, so it started in the K-12 school. But it's since come to library. So this is the picture of a Charlie Cart program being offered in Horry County, South Carolina. I know the Rutherford County Library in North Carolina just acquired a Charlie Cart and they also have one in Stillwater, Oklahoma at the library. But really the Charlie Cart initiative is the bedrock of a new initiative of the South Carolina State Library called Read, Eat, Grow. And so the South Carolina Library actually acquired a couple of these Charlie Cards that they are now kind of rotating throughout the state. So libraries can kind of get a Charlie Cart. It'll come through the kind of interlibrary loan system and the kind of the trucks that they already have that they use to move things throughout the state. And so a Charlie Cart has within it all the supplies you need to do with simple cooking program as well as some basic ideas if you don't know how to get started. So it's literally kind of a kitchen in a box. And so there's a couple of these that they have that are kind of rotating throughout South Carolina libraries and they're trying to use this to encourage more librarians to do cooking classes. And so this is actually a photo of one of my students, Lindsay Maloney, at her branch of the Horry County Library, using the South Carolina State Library's Charlie Cart for a pop-up cooking class. Lindsay told me I made veggie and black bean quesadillas. I had six and seven year olds eating spinach, so I called that a win. It was a pop-up event, so it wasn't advertised. So they didn't even advertise the program. They just popped up. It's like, hey, we're just going to start cooking in the library and see what happens. And people were curious, sat down, listened to what Lindsay had to say. And there were about 15 people in total that kind of participated in this pop-up cooking event. Lindsay said she had so much fun doing this and hopes that she can do it again. Food literacy is a growing trend across the country, so picking a budget-friendly but tasty meal and allowing people to taste-test and take the recipe home with a fantastic experience. And so a Charlie Cart, again, is the perfect thing to ask for in a grant. So if you're thinking about what you could apply for LSTA funding, that's how the library in Oklahoma got theirs through an LSTA grant. You can also team up with other libraries. So you could do what they did in South Carolina where a number of libraries teamed up to kind of make the Charlie Cart available through a consortium. But I think this is just a really, I think it's only going to become more common for libraries to be having these Charlie Carts, because it's really the solution to, I don't have a kitchen, what do I do? Well, get a Charlie Cart and then you have the things you need to start doing cooking classes at your library. So the fourth and final tactic I want to briefly go over is to actually host a farmer's market. And I asked, when I was at the Association for Rural and Small Libraries, I actually asked the people in the room, how many of you have actually host farmer's markets at your library? And actually about a half dozen librarians actually said that they hosted farmer's markets. So I'll ask you as well, do any of you host farmer's markets at your library? Yeah, that's interesting because I would say, I know we have some that attend the farmer's market that already is going on, but like with a library table, here's the libraries, traditional services are things that we offer. Is anybody here doing that in your towns, in your communities? Are you hosting at your library, a farmer's market, or somehow working with them? Let us know, type into the question section and let us know what you're doing. Yeah, please do share. And I just wanted to share the, yeah, and I too, when I first started looking into this, I had seen a lot of libraries, yeah, having a booth at farmer's markets. But then the more I looked at it, I actually found that in some places there is no farmer's market. And so the library in those communities is actually creating and sponsoring the farmer's market. So this is a photo from a flyer, the High Point Public Library and High Point, North Carolina, which is the official host of the High Point Farmer's Market. And they actually even renovated their parking lot to make it more conducive to hosting the farmer's market every Saturday. So it's, yeah, it's a program of the public library. They're doing something similar in Richland County in Columbia, South Carolina. So this is just a memorandum of understanding that the library has with the University of South Carolina's SnapEd initiative, which is part of the USDA. So they're essentially working with the local university as well as the USDA to host farmer's market programs at a number of their different branches. We do have actually a couple of comments here. Actually, one of our libraries here in Nebraska says we're looking at doing it for this upcoming summer. So great summer. And someone else says I've set up a table at our local farmer's market before, like you mentioned, but we haven't hosted a market at the library, but great idea. So maybe start doing that. Yeah, no need to reinvent the wheel if your community already has a successful farmer's market. There's no need to kind of replicate that. But if that service is not available, it's definitely, I think, something that libraries can do to help out. So great. So those are the four tactics. So just a quick recap, the four tactics that I've seen libraries do to feed America are distribute food in one way or the other, support community agriculture, support healthy eating through cooking classes, and even host farmer's markets. And now I'm going to transition a little bit and talk about some of the partners that we can be working with to make these four tactics. The realities in our libraries. Actually, I want to let you know, know someone actually just commented to very interesting about farmers markets can't wait to talk to our director about this. So might have gotten another library to come on board doing it. Great, great. Yeah, that's wonderful. And I'll just I'll make a, yeah, just a quick, if there's anything I can do to help anyone implement any of these ideas, please do reach out to me after the webinar as well. So, as I said, so much of this is really about partnerships, so you can you can definitely consider me a partner resource person as well. And that's I think that's really what it all comes down to is those relationships and networks. And one of the most important networks, I think we need to be tapping into is the US Department of Agriculture, and in particular, their extension system. So if you don't know every every state and most territories have actual extension systems. And so if you go to this link, you can actually find your local state extension. And then from there kind of drill down to most many states have county extension agents. So as part of the, so for instance, here in North Carolina, the North Carolina state extension system have agents in all the different counties. And interestingly, I'll just make a quick one of our one of our counties Randolph County public library actually just won an award a state award for cooking classes that they're offering in collaboration with the Randolph County extension agent, which is part of the North Carolina state extension. So just just an amazing partner and your extension agent can connect you to some of the different programs and services offered by the USDA, which include the master gardener initiative master naturalists frequently extension agents are trained nutrition educators. The four H is part of the USDA. They can also connect you to the USDA summer feeding program. So just if you're not. Yeah, actually, if are you all connected to your extension agents. I'd love to see maybe a show of hands or maybe in the question if you could tell me a little bit about how you may work with your extension agent if you if you are working with them. Putting their hands up here and also here in Nebraska, we've been working with our extension agent for maker spaces that we're putting the training and education about that and doing the community connections between this maker space grant that we have. And we have our extension is involved in that as well. And we do have a comment here. Let's see over here. Thank you for highlighting extension. I am. Oh, so we have on the line here with us. I am a county extension agent with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension. And I regularly work with libraries to support community and school gardens. That's amazing. And so I'm not sure who's making that comment, but I'd love to connect with you after the webinar. And someone else says our master gardeners are master gardeners does programming in the library and maintains our flower beds. So we're working with them. That's a great idea. And our nutrition someone else says our nutrition agent hosts monthly cooking programs at one of our branches. And we do occasional other programs with our extension agents. They're a great resource. Yeah, they do so many different things. I definitely highly recommend connecting with them because especially if there's some topic that you at your library want to do and you're not an expert in it and you're not even sure, you know, who on our staff could even learn all this. Just reach out to them. They've got the programs already set. They do this already. They will have someone on some topic that they just come in and they already have everything ready to go for you. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. I just think they're just such such an amazing resource. And I think, unfortunately, when we think about partners for health related programming, we don't think as often about the extension as we should, but really supporting health and wellness is one of the fundamental kind of missions of the USDA NIFA initiative, which is, I can't remember if NIFA is part of the extension or related to it. But if you want to kind of see the bigger picture, just look up NIFA USDA is kind of the broader. And again, not only in rural, I think we think of the extension as only being in rural America, but there's definitely extension agents in New York City. So just a quick plug. The Cornell extension in New York State actually does a lot of programs in New York City. So the Cornell extension has an agent or agents in New York City. So big cities, small towns, the extension is everywhere. And they're certainly not the only partner, but I consider them to be the most important. Other common partners include food banks, regional local food banks. I mentioned area agencies on aging, councils on aging can be great resources if you want to support meals on wheels or other food distribution programs for older adults. Your local health department, of course, various gardening and farming groups, including future farmers of America, grocery stores, schools, cafeterias, especially, but also thinking about high school students that may be in a shop class. They can maybe build you a little free pantry or raised bed gardens. Churches, again, they can be a great resource for kitchens if you want to do a cooking class. Scouts, Eagle Scouts may be able to build a garden, raised bed, I've seen that in a number of places. Your state library, they may be able to provide you with some funding for something like the Charlie Cart. Organizations of retirees, so one of the actually really interesting, when I did this session at ARSL in September, someone mentioned that their veterans of foreign affairs, foreign wars, the VFW have actually been a huge partner. Their kind of little free pantry is essentially kind of maintained by the VFW. They come in periodically, so the VFW built a little free pantry and then they come in and just kind of maintain it, make sure that there's always food there and just kind of keep an eye on it. And so really the potential partners are limitless. And so just keep in mind who have you worked with, we're about to get into the Q&A. But before we get into the Q&A and actually have a structured exercise for the Q&A, I want to say that really feeding America at the library is all about partnerships and relationships. And so I mentioned the Crandon Public Library in northern Wisconsin that did that Iron Chef Healthy Fruits and Vegetables edition. Michelle Gober, the former director who actually became so passionate about this topic that she now actually worked for the Wisconsin Extension System. So she actually jumped shift and left library and went for the extension. But anyhow, she said that the library is now seen as a community partner. It has allowed us to be part of the conversation and therefore part of the solution. And so let's get out there and let's feed America. And if there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. And so I wanted to just end, so here's just an example. If you're doing food distribution, you may want to get people to just print and sign, just basically agreeing to hold the library harmless in case that you eat something that may not go down well. Of course advertising if there's any allergens as part of the program. But I wanted to for the next 15 minutes kind of have a structured exercise what's worked for you, what concerns do you have and how can we work together. And I'm hoping this is going to work technologically, but I have kind of this little sheet here. And so I think if you're able to respond in the questions. Yeah, but what's worked for you what concerns do you have and how can we work together. And let's see if we can get a good conversation going and I think Krista mentioned that people actually have the capacity to turn on your mic so if you actually want to turn on your mic and just just you can do that as well if that would be easier. Sir, sure, whichever way you'd like to you can type in the questions section, or I can if you raise your hand, I can unmute you I put down all the hands that were raised from before. But yeah, if you want to share this if you've done anything like this at your libraries in your communities. Let us know you know share what you've done, or if you think I know we had a few libraries that mentioned they were going to be doing you know interested in the. Probably market aspect, or any concerns that you have you know if you are thinking about do this what are you worried about. We have quite a few people on the line here so I'm sure people are either already doing something or are wondering about this for themselves so let us know what you want to know about it we can either know or other people on the line can help with some ideas. So we have a comment here of the cooperative extension has been our biggest supporter and cheerleader in this area. They regularly provide cooking programs in our libraries. So that's something they've worked it with and no actual no great concerns for it it works just fine extension is a great resource yeah. Has anybody done something that people didn't answer before or say anything about the seed libraries. I know that that's becoming very popular and we have quite a few libraries here in Nebraska that do it. Does anybody else they're doing they're doing those seed lending or seed exchange libraries and how is that working out is anybody having any issues with that. Let's have a few other questions or comments coming up someone says they have a local chef who has come in and presented numerous programs at the library. So that's an interesting one to reach out to just your local restaurants yeah. Yeah yeah and I've seen that in other places as well kind of yeah just teaming up with the local chef and usually they're more than happy to do that. Again just when you're working with local businesses make sure that you're not just yeah you want to be careful not to just have it be something where the chef is just coming in and promoting their business. But if you say hey if anyone any local chef want to come in and do a cooking class. I think that's an excellent excellent idea. All right so we got a lot more coming in here. Let's see. Do you have any rules set in here's a question do you have any rules set in place when patrons take fresh produce from the veggie exchange. Like if someone gets sick and they blame the produce of the library. I think that's what you mentioned before having something policy or something they sign. Yeah yeah so I think there's two ways that you could do that you could have kind of just so actually I'll go back to that really quickly. You could have a form like this at the veggie exchange table that you ask people to print and sign before they take things basically saying that. Yeah so you're you're you kind of wave any any liability associated with anything that may occur to you physically as a result of produce that you acquire. You could also you don't necessarily have to get people to sign you could just have this have something like this printed and kind of prominently featured on on the veggie table just just as. And so yeah so that's what I would recommend that's what I've seen libraries do just it doesn't have to be anything too too complicated. You may want to just do a quick check in with your city or county manager but it's becoming it's becoming quite quite common. And and I mean at this point I would say over over 100 libraries that are doing this in one form or the other I've never heard anything bad. I mean I think most people are aware that if you're if you're kind of taking food from a library and you're not paying for it. Yeah yeah. It's not the same as you went to buy to the grocery store and they're responsible. Yeah absolutely. Absolutely. All right so here's another comment. One of the issues we have run into with the USDA programs is that they are limited to children and families will come if they bills can't eat. But we have solved this by having local donors supplement the grant provided food so that the parents can eat as well. That's what the USDA is offering you and then have someone else to help. Yeah. Yes and that is an issue I've heard from many many different places and yeah and I think and it sounds like that that participant they're kind of doing what I've seen other libraries do as well so. And so local donors supplement the grant. I've often seen libraries work with local food banks so food banks can often provide meals for adults. But yeah it is. So the USDA summer feeding program you're legally only allowed to provide meals for minors aged 18 and younger. And so that that is an issue that. But I also think yeah I think it would be important to let let the USDA know kind of just tell them like this is an issue we're experiencing. So the more that they know that this is an issue the more there may be the the political wherewithal to actually change the policy. But yeah that is an issue. Or come up with another program that's for families for everyone in a family. Yeah yeah. Let's see if we teach another what some library does. We teach kitchen and nutrition life skills classes in the after school program using the hall mech room. Great. That's definitely something you just how to how to how to cook how to use the kitchen how to how to cut your veggies correctly. Yeah. Yeah and I'm assuming when that participant mentioned using the home ack room that there this sounds like it may be an outreach program. So something maybe an offsite program at the school. Which again they're the schools not not usually having classes so those those facilities whether it be the home ack room or the cafeteria. They may be available to do do programs and during the summer month. Yes. Yeah actually she actually clarified as you mentioned that she said yes it is outreach at the school. So this is the library working with the school. Yeah yeah. And I'll just I'll make a quick plug. So we had so if you want to see I asked these same questions and did the same exercise at the Association for rural and small libraries conference. And we had a packed room. I think there was close to 60 people in that room. So there was a pretty pretty lively conversation. So if you go to the go to the website you can see kind of actually posted the answers that people gave to these questions. On my website so you can see what other people from across the country said has worked for them what concerns they have and and what are what are people interested in trying as well. And I'm going to post this as well. So after this I'll post I'll post this to to the website as well. Awesome. All right. Because we had a lot of other people who have also commented with more ideas. Yeah let's go ahead. It's only 1050 or so central time. So we have at least another 1015 minutes that we can go with this. Great. What are what are people saying in the comments. Let's say here's another one we've offered summer feeding programs for several years as well as cooking classes for all ages. We also have gardening programs for children each summer. And they say now I'm very eager to start a seed catalog program this spring. And I love the idea of a monthly senior monthly senior lunch. And some things are already extending out. And here is an extension agent says we partner with the High Point Public Library to host a yearly seeds to share event every February for community gardens and pair it with a community discussion about how to start a community garden how to save seeds etc. And that this has been a great partnership. Yeah. Yeah. And High Point. Yeah. So I'm here in Greensboro, Guilford County. The High Point Library is just just amazing. Let me see if I can. So yeah. So Christa if you want to read the next comment I'm going to actually see if I can find the link really quickly that I can share about about the work that High Point is doing. But yeah go ahead and. This is another one that the next one is another one that brings an extension. We bring them into the library for programming. And they offer classes on canning freezing healthy cooking in a crock pot. A lot of creative ways to work with your foods. Oh, and here's my saying that this person says they are a volunteer at their local thrift store, which is also thrift thrift store slash food pantry. And she says I build silk floral arrangements for my own personal silks all sales go to stocking the food pantry. And this is something that pantry board would definitely be interested in is doing more things really well linked to the library. Here. And I just put a link and I don't know if I'm yeah I think Christa you may need to share it out but this is just a link. I think this is the extension agent in Guilford County. Yeah this is they've started this children's garden club in the summer. I mean they do programs for all ages but in particular during the summer months every Thursday is the children's garden club meeting. And they they really it includes stem so it's a great opportunity to learn about science technology engineering and math through gardening. And so really yeah and so and here in North Carolina we have a large growing season so they're able to do it not only in the summer but. But yeah there's a lot of a lot of great resources here on this website about their high point public library children's garden club which again is a partnership wouldn't be possible without the robust partnerships that the high point library has with the North Carolina state extension system. Let's see what else do we have here the school does the summer feeding program this one they bring lunches to the library on event days so the kids don't have to choose one or the other. The library is doing something specific they do it at the library instead of at the school over the summer that's yeah go where the kids are go where your patrons are that's a common thing for anything library does yeah. And then someone has a question specifically do you know of any USDA type grants targeted to seniors in. That is a really good question I I personally do not know off the top of my head but let me go ahead I think you can see my screen. So if there was grants available it would probably be through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. That's the NIFA and so if there was if the USDA had a grant it would probably be through NIFA but a lot of what USDA does is they provide block grants to their state the state extension system. So you could look at the USDA website but you may also want to just look at your your state extension website they may have funding for a local a local program a lot of what the USDA is a national entity funds are large national projects. So for local local funding my my recommendation would be to look at your your state extension system that's going to be part of your whatever land grant university you have in your particular state or territory. Yeah, I know yeah because I handle you know trying to get grants and ideas for grants to libraries and some of these you know community block grants USDA grants are just you're not necessarily going to find something that says this is a grant for the a particular topic it's going to be. We offer grants to communities you come up with a project you want to do and tell us about it and then we will see but we're going to be the money so just look for things in general about community grants for your commute for communities for your municipalities for. Public departments of whatever and then you'll make up your project that you want them to fund. Yeah, I'm just on that funding I want to make a quick plug so there's this let's see if I can find it now. There's this is a great website, which of course now I'm not able to find. But there's finding there's a there's a resource for finding funding from foundations for libraries. You know what I'm talking about Krista. Oh, here it is visualizing so I'll put a link here I finally found that libraries dot foundations. And so it's really I mean it's pretty robust actually like I spent some time looking at North Carolina. And so you can you can actually drill down and find foundations that may be in your area that oftentimes they love this type of thing. I mean local foundations they love doing things to help people live better lives and eat better and kind of and so local foundations are just wonderful, wonderful sources of funding as well. And so again it's kind of having that that kind of idea that that you want to do when kind of and then it's just a question of of kind of networking with the foundation. But I think foundations are just a wonderful source of funding for for kind of larger initiatives and and they're oftentimes really excited to provide funding to public libraries for these types of programs. Yeah, absolutely. Let's see we got a few few more questions. Great, great. So let's know if you can share again the link to the arsl feedback. Oh yeah, yeah I didn't I didn't actually include that so that's I will. So that's on my website. I'll put the link in the chat but if you click on let's move libraries dot org events and then just look for the arsl logo here. And I'll actually put a link. If you click on this partial transcript because I say a partial transcript because the conversation was so rich I wasn't able to record everything but it was a really, really great conversation. And so it was really people talking about working with every everyone from the VFW to FFA American Legion. Yeah, so just a really, really, really great conversation at arsl and hopefully we'll be able to do more. I'm definitely going to be in Wichita. So a quick blog at the end of I think I think it's actually going to be in October, October 2020 in Wichita as the next association for rural and small libraries. And oftentimes your state library will actually provide funding to enable you to go. Yes, we just put out another push about it here in Nebraska if you are in Nebraska library are continuing education grants this year that will there open the applications open right now for 2020 are all being specifically reserved so to speak for attending arsl because Wichita is like from anywhere in Nebraska and three or four hours just south we can drive. So yeah here in Nebraska we are offering grants here through the library commission and through our regional library systems are offering theirs. So you can combine our grant and theirs and ours are $500 grants in each of our systems have their own different ones. So yes if you're in Nebraska go to our website apply we have this money it's set aside for you to go to arsl. It's a great conference for small and rural libraries highly highly recommended. Yes me too. Look to your state library and ask. All right let's see what else we have here. Someone says we've also worked with the National Center for Families Learning. They provide grants to help us host family educational programs including food. The food is the biggest draw to get people in of course and we also do a short program about learning together as a family food is always a big attraction for anything. I'm sure you know if you just provide the food as you know there will be treats at this event or refreshments but having a place where an event where people are actually learning about the food or making it themselves. Probably just as enticing to people. Let's see now someone else says we have not tried it yet but are looking into using the kitchen facilities and community club houses to present programs. Especially low income communities that have the facilities available. Yeah look out into your community and see where is there somewhere you know you might not have some place in the library. I know some libraries have a kitchen area for preparing and doing things for their events but it's not really a kitchen that can be used unlike that Charlie cart to prison program. But maybe somewhere else who has a larger one or something a larger area would be able somebody you could work with. And someone here says also I am interested in building a community garden at a local park because we don't have any green space at the library to do it in. So I have to find somewhere else in the community to actually do that. Yeah and I've also heard of libraries if there is a community garden already in existence I know some places the library will basically secure a plot in that garden that they use for programs. So just kind of having a library plot at the existing community garden that they can use for programming and education during in particular the summer months. Yeah and that is the last one that was taken. Anybody have anything else you want to share? We just said a couple of minutes after 11 a.m. Central time officially but we won't get cut off for our show here. We can go up as long as needed as long as people are here and I know I can hang out. So if anybody has any last minute things they want to share things they've done or questions you want to ask of Noah or anyone else in the in the attendance here about tips and tricks for doing any of these things. Get it typed into your question section there. And I will mention too while while we're here I will I do have already put onto the session page for today's show. The link to the let's move in libraries page specifically for and come as live for this episode. So that'll be available to you to access very quickly from there. And then that has as no saying all the links to his slides all the other things we've been talking about and everything you can explore the whole website and find the air SL session as well. So that will be all available to everyone. It's in right now. Yeah. And hopefully I'll be able to meet some of you in person at a RSL in 2020. I'll look forward to that. Please come up and introduce yourself if you are. Great. Great. We have many thanks for a helpful session. That was the idea. Definitely. Yeah. Thanks everyone for coming and participating today. Yeah. Exactly. Some great ideas some great resources definitely. All right doesn't look like anybody is has typed in anything anymore ideas but we did get quite a lot. Yes. Yeah absolutely. So any last words Noah before we do wrap things up and I do. No no yeah just thanks everyone for coming and yeah please do consider me a resource as well. Going forward. Great. This is this is a great show like it says you said we've done a show before about the garden in our Beatrice library but I know I see lots of libraries doing these kind of things for for food and events and even the whole get let's move in libraries of other things that are not just you know this this particular session today was about feeding food in America but Looking at the let's move in libraries page you'll find lots of things about activities and getting exercise and doing those kind of programs the library so look into that too. All right so I am going to pull back presenter control to my computer here so thank you Noah for being with us this morning I guess that this was a great session. Let's glad to have everyone here so you should be seeing my screen there we go. So here is the session page for dating see here I did add the link that opens up to the there it is specific page for our show but you can get to all the other ones over on the side here too so go ahead and explore everything. And the slides are available here the document that he's been typing up all we've been all chatting will be available when it's ready and put up on there as well. So someone did also ask and so that's that we're up for today show officially but someone did ask about getting an attendance certificate. Yes about an hour after our shows and here you'll get an email that is a thank you for attending our show and it does have a PDF certificate of just a proof of attendance of the live show live and compass live show so you will have that coming coming to you soon after everything is is done. So that will wrap it up for today and I'm going to go to our and compass live page here. So far on the Internet's and compass live is the only thing called that so you can use your search engine of choice type in and compass live and it will come up with our website. Today show has been recorded and will be here on our website this is our upcoming shows the right beneath underneath them is our archives today show will be at the top of the list the most recent ones are at the top here. We'll have a link to the recording that will be on this is the one for last week the recording will that is on will be posted to our YouTube channel and the link to today's presentation. The page from the Let's Move in libraries is already there for you when it is ready. I will email hopefully by the end of the day today as long as go to webinar and YouTube all cooperate with me. I will email everyone who attended today and everyone who registered to let you know that it is ready for you to watch. And while we're here on the archives page I will show you we did a search feature here you can search all of our archives you want to find the top see what kind of shows we've had. You can search the entire archives or just most recent 12 months if you want to. This is because and compass live started in January 2009 and we are still going strong 10 years later and we have all of our archives are here on this page. This is really really long page you can see if I kept scrolling all the way back to 2009 is on here so we do have a search feature. So when you are looking for things on here and searching just pay attention. Everything has a date of when it was originally broadcast so you can know how old the information might be on a particular session. Some of our sessions they take they they last the test of time no big deal that the information is going to be always useful to you. But for some things depending on the topic the resource might no longer exist the web page moved the service may have changed essentially so just pay attention to the original broadcast date if you are looking through any of our archives. We also do have a Facebook page for and compass live we push out to there our information about things are going on. Excuse me here's a reminder about logging into today's show reminders of what living people know if I scroll down a bit here when our recordings are available. This is last week's show. So if you are using Facebook and give us a like over there and you can keep up to the up to date on things we're doing only a couple of times a week to post. And other than that I hope you join us for next week's show where we will be talking with United for Libraries trustees advocates friends and foundations the voice for American libraries. United for Libraries is the ALA division that is the for any friends and foundation so they're going to be talking about the things that they have coming up in the next year. Beth Nolinsky is the executive director and she will be joining us with Peter Pearson who is the current president of United for Libraries so if you have a friends or foundation group or your board that wants to learn more about how to do that you can sign up and watch next week's show with us. One of our libraries here in Nebraska keen Memorial Library was awarded the Baker and Taylor Award for United for Libraries their friends group was nominated and received it so the librarian from there will be talking about that as well. So please do sign up for that show or any of our other future shows coming up. Thank you everyone for attending and we will see you next time on and come as I thanks. Bye bye.