“So many things are happening at the library,” branch manager of Naturita Public Library Amanda Richards told the Forum Monday. “We have our Susan Rice Community Compassion Award celebration, the second year we’ve done it.”
The Susan Rice award is now an annual honor, with nominations coming from community members. The award goes to one focused on community and helping to give back.
This year, Joann Sharp is the recipient, and she will be honored Feb. 23, at 11 a.m., at the Naturita library. Lunch will be provided, and all are welcome to attend and celebrate Sharp. As part of the award, Sharp also is given $500 from the library district to donate to a nonprofit of her choice.
Additionally, the library just received a few weeks ago a grant from the Colorado Department of Eduction. At nearly $20,000 the grant will go toward retrofitting one office in the library, in order to transform it into a tele-health space and community workroom.
“It’s extremely exciting,” Richards said. “It’s a great thing for the community.”
She added the room will be made soundproof, and purchased with funds will be a computer with other medical equipment: scales, blood pressure cuffs, oximeters and more. The space is open to anyone meeting with medical professionals online, and it’s for online therapy or counseling too.
Richards said it can also be used, though, for legal appointments, and some in the community are coming into the library for that purpose. At the same time, the parole officer can use the space to meet parolees too.
Along with the grant is money to make available some equipment that can be checked out for tele-health appoints at home.
Richards said the remodel should be complete in March.
In other library news, while the literacy for little ones class sort of fell by the wayside when the new Nucla school opened and the younger children moved up the road, the library will now travel to meet the kids. Terri Jamison will be teaching a weekly movement and music class for preschool kids, funded by the Telluride Foundation. She will meet with both the morning and afternoon sessions.
And, Richards will do the literacy for little ones.
What’s more is that for the last quarter of this school year, Leslie Ament will teach the Safe Sitter and Safe at Home classes for all students in the middle school and high school too. The classes are made possible by a grant through Bright Futures. Richards is working with new principal Josh Ledford to plan the sessions, which will not interfere with academics.
Richards said Ament will be on site for study hall-type classes, or intervention periods, so that she can share the training. It includes CPR and first-aid classes.
The Naturita Public Library had hosted the Safe Sitter and Safe at Home classes on site at the branch previously, and they filled up. Richards said it’s a good thing to be able to bring the material to the kids in the school now. And, with so many families needing child care and babysitting, it could be a real benefit.
“We can offer it to all of them,” she said.
Richards said there is more, and the library will make additional updates in the next few weeks.
