Mount Jewett Memorial Library Board Meeting

Mount Jewett Memorial Library Board Meeting was held at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

The meeting started with a guest presentation. Tracey Ross with Alcohol & Drug Abuse "Bingo for Books" gave her presentation and answered any questions the board and visitors had. Ross said, "I am a prevention specialist. What my job is, is to educate people on drug abuse and do prevention activities with kids so that they won't start using drugs. We have a program called "Too Good for Drugs" that we do in the schools. It is a really good program because it teaches kids about decision-making and trying to make good choices and it goes into the facts of what happens when you choose to drink alcohol or do drugs. It's a ten-week program and it is from

Kindergarten to twelfth grade. It is a really good program. And we do a lot of alternative programs like "Bingo for Books" which hopefully next week we are going to have here. My supervisor gets books from a company and they are free. All she has to do is pay for the freight so they are really nice hardback books for the kids and adults. We play bingo and the kids can win books. I've collaborated a lot with Michelle at the Kane Community Center. We've done quite a few activities and actually, we are going to be doing birdhouses that are already put together but need to be painted. We are going to do a family fun night painting birdhouses. We are also going to be doing a painting class here at the library in May. That is a guided painting class. We hired an artist and we go Zoom with them and she guides everybody on how to paint."

Library director Angela Cornelius said, "We are not trying to get twenty people here. We are trying to stay under twelve people. We are looking to get a tent so in the summer we can have more people because we will be outside."

Tracey Ross agreed with keeping the participants to a minimum due to COVID. Ross said, "Bingo for Books" is always a big hit. It is a really good deal for us. All we have to pay for is shipping. We just got two thousand pounds of books last week. So, we have a lot of books."

Jason Hughes asked if they did the "Stuff the Plush". Ross answered by saying, "Yes we did "Stuff the Plush". It is something that we can do here. It is like "Build a Bear". I did that at the girls and boys club in St. Marys." Hughes asked if these programs cost anything. Ross said everything is free.

Ross said, "I hope we can do something here monthly. That would be really great. But other services that we have for alcohol and drug prevention, we outpatient services as far as evaluating the person and counseling with the person that has the addiction problem. We also have Maple Manor. It is a bed facility that we have. We have 16 short-term beds and eight long-term beds. I have been going there once a month to do art activities with them. That has been fun and I've enjoyed that. The stay can vary. I think they try to keep it at 28 days but it just depends from person to person. In this area, in the fall we will be doing the "Strengthen the Families" program. That is