Hi friends, Janae would be procure with some exciting news. Town meeting day elections for mayor, city council and more will be using ranked choice voting and all polling to voters get to participate. Unfamiliar with ranked choice voting? Keep watching or visit the link below. Ranked choice voting is a simple way to let voters rank candidates in order of preference. First, second, third, and so on. If your vote can't help your first choice win, it counts to your second choice instead. Here's how it works. If one candidate gets over 50% of everyone's first choice votes, they win and the election is over. However, if no candidate reaches a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and their supporters votes will count towards their second choice. This process continues until one candidate reaches over 50% of the vote. Ranked choice voting is an easy way to give voters more voice, more choice, and makes for a stronger democracy. Learn more about ranked choice or try it out for yourself at betterballotvermont.org slash BTV 2024. Hello and thank you for tuning in to Town Meeting TV's ongoing coverage of Town Meeting Day 2024. My name's Bobby Lucia. This program is part of a series of forums that we host in advance of Town Meeting Day. So on March 5th, Town Meeting TV hosts forums with all candidates and covers the questions that you will see on your ballot, introducing you to community decision makers and connecting you with the issues that shape your local community. You can find all of our forums at cctv.org slash 2024 and you can see these programs and more on our YouTube channel as well as on Comcast and Burlington Telecom. And you can call in with your questions tonight at<PHONE_NUMBER>, more about that in a moment. On tonight's program we will hear from two candidates running for Ward 6, the Ward 6 seat on the Burlington City Council. That's right, right? That's right. And those two candidates are Will Anderson and Becca Brown-McNight. Thank you so much for joining us, guys. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Awesome. So we've prepared a list of questions for each of you and you'll have 90 seconds to respond to each question. If you're in tuning in live, we also welcome your questions at<PHONE_NUMBER>. If you call in, we will do our best to prioritize your question, though we will screen questions to ensure that no questions are repeated and we ask that you share when you call in your name, where you live and that your question be directed to all or both of the candidates here. So let's get started with one minute opening statements and we'll start with Will Anderson, your opening statement, 60 seconds. Thank you. Well, thanks for having me here again at Town Meeting TV. As I've mentioned before, I think this is just one of the many institutions that makes Burlington the capital for local democracy, you know, around the country, around the world. And that's a big part of why I love it here and why I want to represent our award on the City Council. I think that Burlington is my favorite city I've ever lived in. I love the environment. I love the people. I love the culture. I love the institutions. But I think that we as a people living here, especially those of us, you know, that work and get by paycheck to paycheck are facing undue economic pressure that we can mitigate with our municipal policy. I think that we need to grow as a city, increase our housing supply. I think that we need to have new initiatives to become more ecologically friendly within our region. And I think we need to do more to be safe as a city, to have a better police force that can adequately respond to all calls for distress. And you know, in those situations where there's drugs and mental illness involved, be able to respond in a way that's appropriate. Great. Thank you so much, Will. Becca, your opening statement, 60 seconds. Great. Thanks for having me. So I'm running for City Council because I love Burlington. I love living here. I've always wanted to live here. And now that I do, I wake up feeling so lucky to be in Burlington. I am stepping up to run because for the past decade, I have felt that my voice, the voice of a mom with young kids, has not been represented on the City Council. I hope to bring a new perspective to help create a brighter future for our city. I want to address public safety, the housing and affordability crisis, and harness our collective enthusiasm for the natural world to take real action on climate change. If I have the chance to serve as a counselor, Burlington can expect to see the same skills that I've honed over my career. And expertise in financial analysis, communication, and an understanding of human behavior. We are not at a time when we need blind ideology in our city government. We need counselors who can handle the city with care. We need folks ready to roll up their sleeves, make compromises, and who can handle the tough choices that come with city government. That's the kind of counselor I want to be, and I hope to earn your vote. Thanks. Thank you both so much. So we'll jump into the questions, and the first question will be about city finances. So do you support the proposed public safety tax increase on the ballot for the city this year? Yes or no? And what experience do you bring to the overall financial management of the city? And we'll start with you, Becca. Great. Yeah. So I want to start by saying I acknowledge we have a real affordability issue here in Burlington, and I don't think we can solve our problems by continuing to raise taxes on our residents. Taxes are still reeling from the property tax increase a few years ago, and there's just a limit to what our citizens can afford in their monthly budgets. That said, I do support the proposed public safety tax increase. It has been five years since we had a municipal tax increase on the ballot, and we need these funds to make the important investments in our public safety systems. As we all know, this is a really critical time for those systems, and we need to fund them. In terms of what I bring to the city's financial management, I have an MBA and 15 years experience in managing multi-million dollar budgets for my clients as well as running my own business. I understand that budgets are finite and that we need to think creatively to get the most out of our tax dollars. Thanks. Thank you so much, Becca. Will, your response? I'm also in support of the public safety tax surcharge because I think that we need to be investing rapidly in the bonuses and the salaries required to attract law enforcement officers to our city and rebuild our police force. I also, I agree with Becca that we need to be conscious about the tax increases that we're imposing on our residents, but I believe that our strategy should be to realign our tax system so that's more fair. I think that owners of multi-family properties, non-overoccupied properties, should be paying a higher share for that tax, much like the state homestead and non-homestead rate, and I also think that we should consider introducing an income sensitivity element, whether through a rebate program to the property tax or through the introduction of some kind of income tax on Burlington, keeping in mind that Burlington's income has dramatically ballooned post-pandemic era by some $200 million. We should be conscious of that when looking at revenue sources going forward. These are the kind of things that I look at in my day job with the state administration, where I work as an analyst for fiscal policy in the Scott administration in Montpelier. I've been doing this for two budget cycles now and previously worked in public finance both with the communications union districts and with USDA Rural Development. I have a sense for how public finance works, for how responsible fiscal policy leads to a good society and a good government. I think that the progressive movement should have fiscal conservatism in the front of our minds when making fiscal policy. The difference for me is whether we can change the tax system so that's more fair and people are paying what's appropriate for them, given the resources they have and the resources available to them. Great. Thank you both so much for those responses. Our next question, we're sticking with the theme of finance and we're moving on to the school budget. This year, Burlington School District administrators have proposed a $119.6 million school budget resulting in a tax rate, a tax impact of 13.97%. So do you support this budget, yes or no? And why or why not? And we'll start with Will Anderson. Well, let's start by saying that a lot is up in the air with the school budget just based on what happens on the state level. Ways and means and house appropriations are considering changes at Act 127. I could have serious implications for this budget and there's going to be some uncertainty as to whether this budget as presented is what we'll actually be facing for the coming fiscal year. That being said, I trust in the folks who constructed this budget and I want to support our schools and our teachers as fully as possible. So I would support the property tax increases associated with this as difficult as it will be for many Burlington taxpayers. But again, I think that the real solution here is that we need to look at a property tax reform. We need to look at how we can introduce an element of income sensitivity and we need to look at how we can make this fair for people that don't own, that don't live in the buildings that they own. They're collecting rent and passive income on these buildings, but they're not paying a higher property tax rate than folks who live in their own home, you know, single family homeowners. So as a city counselor, these kind of tax reforms are what I'd be really looking for in order to make this more fair in light of the increased need for resources. So again, I support the idea of paying more, of making sure our teachers have the resources that they need, the students have the resources that they need, but in the end, it's going to be a reform of the system that makes sure that everyone's paying their fair share. Great. Thank you so much, Will. Becca Brown-McNight, your response about the school budget. Yes. So I agree. We are in a tricky situation with the school district budget because of the Act 127 legislation. And so I think as we look at both this year and moving forward, it's going to be critical for city counselors and the mayor's office to work really closely with our lawmakers in Montpelier to make sure that we don't get budget changes here in Burlington that come out of the blue and that also originate outside of Burlington. I don't think that's fair and I don't think that's right. So I know they're working furiously down in Montpelier to try to fix some of these unintended consequences, and I'm really glad to hear that, but there's certainly more work to do, and this is something we really need to watch closely as it unfolds over the next few years. I do support the school budget increase. As a mom with two little kids in our public school system, I see the value of investing in our schools and in our teachers and our administration every single day. I also see how spread thin our teachers are, but also the incredibly inspiring work that they do, and they're really building the future of our city. So I will always stand with teachers and with students in advocating for what they need. Thanks. Great. Thank you both so much for those comments on the school budget. It looks like we have a call here. Is that correct? Okay, so we have a caller with a question, so I'm going to bring them on the line. Hello there, caller. Can you tell us your name and where you're calling from? Maybe try it one more time. Hello there. Can you tell us your name and where you're calling from? My name is Stephanie and I'm calling from Burlington. Great. Stephanie, can you tell us your question for both candidates? Sure. My question is, I just wanted to know what both candidates thought. Thoughts are on making changes to the proposed neighborhood code to ensure that landlords with the history of code enforcement violations being unable to expand on their properties. Great. Thank you so much for your call and we'll start with you, Becca Brown- McKnight, on that question. Thank you. That's a great question. The neighborhood code is such an important piece of the government that's coming through the council right now, so I'm glad you asked. So first of all, I want to say, I think the neighborhood code is something we really need here in Burlington. It is designed to both get us up to speed with some new state regulations on zoning and also to allow for more density and more housing to be built in the city, which overall I think is just what we need. However, given that this is our first major zoning change in, I think, half a century or more, we can't rush this. And we can't just ram it through the city council because we're about to have a change of the guard, so to speak. We need to deal with important issues. I have spoken to constituents about their concerns where landlords with many previous infractions, code violations will just be allowed to continue building on their properties with no consideration of their previous impact on their neighbors. This is something I think we need to be talking about and to look into, along with the added stress that the neighborhood code and new development might put on our sewage systems, as well as wastewater runoff. So I don't have the answers to how we should address all these just yet, but I do think we need to make sure that they are accounted for and that the citizens of Burlington have answers to these questions before we pass the neighborhood code. Thank you. Thank you so much, Becca. Will Anderson, your thoughts on the neighborhood code? Yes, I'm also in support of the neighborhood code. As I've said to many constituents, I think it's a good step in the right direction because Burlington needs to grow in order to accommodate the demand that our economy and their institutions create. People want to live here. A lot of people want to live here. A lot of people have roots here, and that means that our housing market has become tighter and tighter. But I agree with a lot of the concerns that the questioner and Becca brought up, which are that I want to make sure that our public works are not constrained by new development. And I also want to make sure that landlords who have committed violations are held accountable for those in advance of being able to expand on their properties. I'm not saying that I want to restrict anyone from building more in Burlington. Again, I really think that we should be a real city where our supply of housing meets our demand. But the code enforcement violations have gone on for far too long and far too great. Landlords have had a free run of their buildings and their tenants. And I think that they really need to be held accountable. We need to give our code enforcement more teeth and use those teeth, especially on the financial front. We're tight for revenue. I think the landlords that have been violating are the first source that I would look to. And I agree with Becca that neighborhood code should not be rushed, especially with regard to making sure that landlords are held accountable before we go ahead and allow them to start building more buildings where they could potentially be committing more violations. I think the safety of tenants is really the top priority and the economic factors are the underlying foundation of what we're trying to achieve. Thank you so much. Both of you for your responses on that. Our next question is a question about direct democracy in Burlington. So the city council recently decided against putting two proposed questions on the town meeting day ballot, one on police oversight and another calling for an apartheid free community. So the question is, do you support the council's decision to prevent these questions from reaching the ballot? And when is direct democracy an appropriate method of decision making? And we'll start with Will Anderson on this question. Well, I'll say that if I was on the council, I would not have voted to keep these items off the ballot. I think that Burlington really suffers from not having a town meeting day. And although this mayor city council model is proven to be an effective one, the fact that we do allow questions to go on the ballot is really an asset to our city. And that when citizens have more say in their government, that leads to increasing their standard of living. This isn't to say that I necessarily agreed with both of these initiatives in their entirety. I think I agreed with them both in principle, but would have had significant modifications had I been the sole drafter. But I think it's good when questions go on the ballot. And it's really the Vermont way for citizens to be able to weigh in. So as a counselor, I would not have supported keeping these items off the ballot. In fact, I would have supported them going on and potentially other initiatives going on. I think that direct democracy is a good thing. It's been proven that the more democratic a place is, in general, with the right protections, the standard of living in that place tends to go up. I think that's a principle that's what made Burlington as great as it is and one that we should continue to replicate and grow in the future. OK, thank you, Will. And Becca, your thoughts on direct democracy and these ballot questions. Yeah, thank you. So before diving into the question, I just want to first be clear that I support freedom for the Palestinian people. And I stand against the violence in Gaza. I have been making calls to my federal representatives to ask them to fight for a ceasefire, and I will continue to do that. I also stand firmly against anti-Semitism and the violence of Hamas. But here's the thing. My personal opinion as a city counselor, a potential city counselor, should not factor in to a decision to put a particular ballot a particular item on the ballot. Actually, if we're talking about the Vermont way, the Vermont State Supreme Court has actually ruled that city councils across the state should use their judgment to assess the impact of any ballot measure on the community with a special regard to the common good. If a ballot measure runs counter to the common good or may cause harm to certain members of that community, counselors need to exercise their judgment and prevent it from making onto the ballot. As far as I understand, in this case, the city counselors here were hearing frightening examples of harm and hate being caused by this ballot measure, even just the discussion of it, to community members on both sides of the issue. I think this is actually an example of how checks and balances work in our democracy, and it shows why it's important to elect people who have a demonstrated history of exercising good judgment. If I had been a counselor at the time, I would have done more work up front to get both sides of the issue at the table and come up with ballot language that did not cause harm to members of the community. Thank you. Thank you both so much for your responses to that question. Our next question is about addiction and the opioid crisis. So the question is, where do you differ from other candidates in your proposed approach to the opioid crisis and what are the most important initiatives the city can undertake to address this crisis? And we'll start with Becca Brown-McNight. Thanks. So our addiction and opioid crisis is just heartbreaking and has touched so many of our lives, mine included. I have watched friends and family members struggle with addiction, and I've seen how difficult it is to get the consistent care that's really needed for recovery. We need to approach this issue with compassion and treat it like the illness that it is. In terms of where I might differ from other candidates, I will try to approach this issue not only medically but also analytically. Currently, our systems are so fractured that we just don't have a clear sense of the steps and the paths that lead to recovery or the programs that work best for prevention. And even where we do know those steps, they're happening in different places and they're not connected enough. I would propose that we take the time to work with experts and map these things out and then identify the key moments along that path to both addiction and to recovery where we do have solutions, where we know what works and put our focus and invest our dollars in those pieces of the puzzle. I'm particularly interested in looking at prevention measures as well as safe injection sites. I'll stop there for now. Thank you so much, Becca. Will Anderson, your thoughts on the opioid crisis? Sure, well, I'm not sure that I differ substantially from any particular candidate in my approach, including Ms. Brown-McKnight. I think that the drugs have gotten so powerful that we don't have the resources in place to deal with them, especially not us, the city of 42,000 people. The state needs to commit to more inpatient treatment facilities where people can go when they're addicted and receive the treatment they need to get on the right track. I don't think that prison is the solution for that. I don't think that leaving people on the street is the solution for that. I also don't think that the city of Burlington has the capability to start providing that, but I do think that we can shape our response in a way that makes as conducive as possible to aiding in those efforts. For one, we need more recovery residences. The number one thing that leads to relapse is being in proximity or association with people that are taking part in enabling behaviors or other people that are using. And recovery residences have been proven again and again to be Vermont's greatest asset in getting people on a long-term track to recovery. We have very few in Burlington. Most of them have shut down. And I think that we should be working with the Champlain Housing Trust with the Housing Finance Agency to open more of these places where people can live on a subsidized rent and know that they're not gonna be able to interact with these enabling behaviors. The same goes for the pod community with regard to housing and the homeless. I think that if we're gonna expand the pod community model going forward, we should have it with recovery in mind and keeping these enabling behaviors out of the communities we're supporting. Thank you both so much. Our next question is about policing in Burlington. So what does effective policing look like in Burlington? And should the council or the mayor have the authority to discipline officers? And we'll start with Will Anderson on this question. Well, as for the first part, effective policing, I'd like to see a police department that can respond effectively and thoroughly to every call. We're hearing from so many constituents that their calls are not being effectively answered that when they are picked up, there's not enough officers available to send. We know that there's not enough officers on patrol either just to act as a deterrent in key areas around the city, especially downtown. So I think an effective police force is one that has enough staff, enough resources to accomplish that. As for the oversight question, I do think that the police force would be well served by additional community oversight. There was a lot of people in this city, especially people that are not white and are not wealthy, that are treated completely differently by the police. I don't think that's fair. And frankly, I think it's really dangerous based on the examples that have happened in the past. So I would like to see some measures of community oversight be implemented if I were on the city council. However, I'm not gonna go as far to say that I think it's the city council and the mayor that should be directly doing that discipline. I like the idea of the police commission having their authority expanded. I like the idea of an in new independent body being created that could have this authority. But the key is really that that be created in conjunction in collaboration with the police department because when we attempted to, the last time the city council attempted major police oversight reforms, it led to a huge rapid attrition of police officers that we're still trying to recover from today. So I do think it's important. I'm not sure I would go about it to exactly the way that this question was phrased. I'd like to see some kind of independent body established in collaboration with the police department. Thank you so much, Will. Becca Brown-McNight, your thoughts on policing. Thanks. So I see policing as an example in the government where two things can be true. We need to support our police officers and give them a sense that the community has their back. We need to rebuild our police force and frankly, I think we need to do it faster than the plans that I have seen for that. And at the same time, as Will was referencing, our police force is not immune to the systemic challenges of racism and policing that we have seen repeat over and over again across the country. We all need to work together to improve that and I know I'm a person who can be a bridge builder to work towards that change and have the tough conversations that we need to have. I also agree on needing to see an improvement in what I would call the citizen service side of the police. When people call, they need to get help right away. They don't need to get directed to an online form. And finally, I think we're asking too much of our police. I think we're on the right track with the CSOs and the CSLs that we've been adding to the city. They've been doing a great job of handling our nonviolent issues and mental health crises when they're there. And I would like to see continued investment in that and also analysis of some of the new programs that we've implemented to make sure they are working effectively. On accountability, I will also say I don't think it is appropriate for elected officials who campaign every two years or three years like the city council and the mayor's office to discipline police officers. However, we do need some form of transparent accountability and I know that's in the works. It's expected to be on the ballot this summer or this fall and I'm excited to add my voice to that and to see what we can come up with collaboratively. Thank you. Thank you both so much. I think we have time for just one more question. And so that question will be about racial justice. So the question is the city declared racism a public health emergency in 2020. What will you do as a city councilor to address systemic racism in city hall and across the city generally? And we'll start with Becca. Great, thank you. I also see racism as a public health emergency. It is important to me to be a strong ally to people of color while also recognizing that since I am not a member of that group, it's extra important that I listen and make sure that I decenter my own lived experiences, that I include people of color in conversations and plans of our government and that I ensure not only that they are listened to but that their input is acted upon because I think that last step is sometimes what we see missing. These values of mine also apply to the LGBTQ community and any other marginalized groups. I believe being a city where a diverse set of voices and perspectives is encouraged, makes us stronger and makes Burlington a better place to live. As a councilor, I will not hesitate to stand up against racism or any other type of hate and I will encourage equity in everything we do. Thanks. Great, thank you so much Becca. Will Anderson. Well, I really appreciate those comments Becca and I would try to espouse them as well as a city councilor keeping in mind that racism is a public health emergency. We can see it in the numbers and we can see it very easily when we talk to people who are not white that they're living in a different reality with the systems that we've created. But the approach that I would take to trying to solve racism as a public health issue is more of addressing poverty itself. I think that we need to look at how much people are paying in rent, how much people are paying to actually live here to really get at the root of poverty in Burlington. So as I've discussed many times before, if I'm elected to the city council I will pursue a rapid rent stabilization program which I see based on the evidence as being the best way that we can immediately press back against poverty for the long term. Generational poverty I think is really a big part of what's contributing to racial inequity in the United States and in Burlington and that we have real policies that will push back against the generational poverty and start shifting that into generational wealth and doing that by addressing the rent which is the biggest source of poverty that people in Burlington are facing today. It'll be the real effective solution in the long term. We can talk about race and we can talk about equity and we can enact it and we can include it and we can get input that for the policies. But at the core, we need to look at poverty and say why are some people paying so much money in rent when they could be creating generational wealth. Thank you, Will. So that's all the questions that we have time for. I'm gonna wrap things up with a quick opportunity for 30 second closing statements and we'll start with you, Will Anderson, your closing statement for the seconds. I wanna be your city counselor because I think that Burlington can be a leader for a sustainable future. We're doing really well. We have a great renewable energy program, public transit, infrastructure. If not adequate, it's in place and we're really a leader for cities around the country. I'd like to continue that trend so that we have an outsize impact on emerging crises that we're facing. Poverty, climate, social injustice, I think they're all linked. Burlington is already a leader. I'd like to take us even further, increase the standard of living for people here and set an example for the rest of the country. Thank you so much, Will Anderson. Becca Brown, McKnight, your closing statement. 30 seconds. Thank you. So I'll use this last 30 seconds to talk about all of you watching and to put out a call for action and engagement. The challenges we are facing are not easy. They cannot be solved by one arm of city government alone. It is really going to take all of us. I urge you to vote, to take the time, to get to know your representatives, to be in touch with them and to ask how you can contribute to the success of our city. There are so many ways that everyone can participate and be valuable and not all of them require a massive time commitment. I'm here to help you figure that out and I hope to earn your vote. Thank you. Thank you both so much for joining us tonight for your thoughtful responses to these questions and thank you for tuning into town meeting TV. Our ongoing coverage of town meeting day 2024 will bring you in connection with local candidates, allow you to understand the budgets and ballot questions that you'll see on election day. You can find this and many more forums at cctv.org slash 2024 or on our town meeting TV YouTube channel. And of course, don't forget to vote. On March 5th, polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. You can contact your local clerk to find out how to obtain a ballot. I believe in Burlington the ballots have been sent out or will be sent out this week. So be aware of that in your mail. Thank you so much for watching, sharing town meeting TV. So long.


Up next on Big Talk from Small Library 2021 is Beth Anderson from Burnsville Public Library and she's going to talk about how small yet mighty they are there. Hi everybody. I'm Beth Anderson, the director at the Burnsville Public Library in Burnsville, West Virginia. We're in central West Virginia. We're about 15 miles north of the Dead Center geographical point in the state of West Virginia. So that's pretty interesting. We have 1.03 employees, so that's why I say we might be small, but we really are mighty. We do a lot for having just this little bit of people. So sorry, I'm trying to get used to doing this. I've been director since July 2015. I actually started with the library April of 2015 as the on-call person though. That position was a very difficult position to fill. We've actually still got the position, but it's an open position because nobody really wants a job that they can't be guaranteed hours for. So it's difficult. The only reason I was able to do it is because I had an awesome teenager to take care of my little ones. He was an awesome and still is an awesome big brother, so that allowed me to go back to work. Our service population is 3,723. The total service population, our town is around 500 people though. So you can see our circulation is mostly made up of our children's collection. So that's because we're right across the street from our local elementary school. During normal times, we have everybody once a week that every class comes over. And we have 100% of the children at the school right now that have library cards. So they check out books once a week with their classes. So that really helps us with our children's items. We do have a special, we have eight computers in our Mary Susan Black public computer lab. So we're really proud of that. Mary Susan Black was our long-time director. And although she was scared of computers herself, she knew that that was where everything was going. She retired back in the early 2000s. And so she had several computers here before she retired because she knew that that was where it was going. So when she passed away, we named the computer lab as a remembrance because she was the director for around 25 years here at the library. So our programming changes, these are kind of 2014 and 15. We had to count things differently as did most other people in libraries. So the drastic jump really, you can look at 17, 18, and 19 to see really our growth so far for our programming. In 2017, we created our hands-on reading after school program. It's four nights a week. We have children from preschool to eighth grade that attend our after school programs. Monday is Lego night. Tuesday is movie night. Wednesday is book club. And Thursday is our steam night. So we have anywhere between 150 and 200 children a week or we did have before we had to shut the program down in March last year. So it was, you know, the program has grown because that first year in 2017. So we're really proud of the fact that we've been able to accomplish the after school program. 1920 was the first year that we really had a full time, the assistant was here full time with me for the for the after school program. I say full time just for that program. In 2017, 18 and then 18, 19 I had the program by myself three days a week. So when you talk about 20 to 30 kids in the library every day by yourself plus trying to board the desk and trying to help patrons, it's very difficult. So it was a big relief to be able to pull the assistant in and have her here. So it really made a huge difference. And these are just some of the pictures. This was our summer, one of our end of summer programs last year for our older children that participated in our drive through summer reading summer learning program. We did tie dye. They were able to tie dye shirts and stuff. And then this is a picture of one of our family STEM activities with our great volunteer. We have a wonderful resource in our lead volunteer. He has let me dress him up as a frog, as Clifford, as Curious George. He's been every one of the super why characters. He's been the Grinch. He paints our windows. He does all of our maintenance. He's wonderful. This is just some pictures from our after school program. The way that I was able to do the program without any help was I recruited and I just had our older children help. He's one of our older students. They and she is one of our older students. So they were always big helpers before our assistant Avis came in and was able to start helping us with the after school program. So we do have a partnership with WVU Extension Services and their 4-H program. This is our 4-H consultant. And she comes once a month and does activities with the kids, which really helps because it takes some of the pressure off of us to have to do something every, you know, it's only one day a month, but still that's one day a month we don't have to worry about. And then Jace down here, he came to our Lego Knights and he absolutely loves the program and his mom and dad called me and they said, is it okay if we bring Jace's birthday cake and we'll provide the plates and drinks and stuff, but he said that he wanted his birthday party at the after school program. And so, you know, we were like, sure, we made sure all the parents knew that the kids were going to be getting birthday cake and juice, but we always provide a refreshment anyway. So, but, you know, that's all he wanted was to celebrate his birthday with us. So we were tickled to death. It's always a blessing to see, you know, that you're touching kids so much that they want to be there and they want to share special events with you. And then last Halloween in 2019, this was our pumpkin decorating contest. So we had a rainbow fish and we had, I'm not sure what the other one was, what group, I think they were both from Rainbow Fish and then we had Pete the Cat and then we had Bob the Tomato from Veggie Tales and then the kids each got to pick a book from our, from our stash that they could take home was their prize. We do monthly during our regular hours we do when we don't have COVID to deal with. We do family steam movie nights at least once a month and these are just some pictures from the from those events. My son is going to be horrified that people from all over the country saw up his nose. This is my youngest son, Joshua. Again, we always have at least two children for programs because my kids come and so we always know we have a cushion of two but this little girl, she absolutely loved Clifford. She fell in love with Clifford and led Clifford around for like 45 minutes straight. My husband is in the Clifford costume and he loves to play with the little kids and you know everything but he was wore out when he got out of the Clifford costume because she led him around the library 400 times. But there he is as the Grinch. This is one of our, we always do the how the Grinch stole Christmas at Christmas time. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do it this year because of COVID but we're hoping to maybe start back with some outdoor movie nights soon. This is our, one of our New Year's programs. We were shooting for, we were shooting for a just an adult community program. We weren't discouraging kids but we were hoping that they would, you know, that adults would come and also, you know, we had food, we had, you know, we had the party hats and everything. It ended up being mainly children but these were, you know, and we did a best dressed competition. So these two young men were our winners. This is my son and this is our assistant Avis's son. But they were the ones that dressed up so, but the kids had a really good time. We turned the lights off and had a, had a glow party. We had balloons that had glow sticks in them and the kids really loved it. You know, they played chess and the bigger kids, you know, I think they broke out clue and chess and, you know, they played board games and just sat and talked and the bigger kids helped the little kids play so it was really nice before everything changed. This is just some pictures of our, of some of our, well mainly our one volunteer. He also paints our windows. So he does either by holiday or by season. He's getting ready. He's doing spring and then the next ones will be our summer reading windows. But then we were lucky enough a couple of years ago to have the youth poet for our area come and do a program for our after school kids. And this was one of the activities he did.  But Darren, these were at the school. The school has been really good to us.  I read books when they visited and stuff. So it was, it's really nice. And there's Clifford getting his flu shot. While we're on this slide, we do have actually, multiple people have been asking, where do you get the character costumes? We are fortunate enough to be in partnership with our West Virginia Public Broadcasting Station very well. We're one of their inquire within libraries. So part of that program was you got so many visits, you got so many, you got so many visits with different character costumes. So because we're a part of that program, we were able to get that. But reach out to your West Virginia, reach out for your, to your public broadcasting station and see if they can arrange for you to get some, some of these costumes. Ours, these, these we had to box up and send off. But I know our West Virginia Public Library personally, not Public Library, Public Broadcasting, sorry, they personally own the, all of the Super Y kids. So they own all of the costumes for Super Y. So we can get those, we can get those almost whenever we want. But these, it's a little more, it's a little harder, but reach out and, you know, they'll help you figure out how to get them if you need them for a special event or just want to visit. Oh, cool. And somebody else is just sharing, and this is great, we get input from our audience too. A company or website, costumes specialists.com. I just looked it up and they, they rent character, children's book character costumes. We've got Sonic. Sorry, I'm making a note of that myself. Yeah, costumes specialists.com. Awesome. We're, we're very fortunate, like I said, my husband's a good sport. He's disabled.  And like I said, Curious George, Clifford, he's, he's been Princess P from Super Y.  Great. And while we're here, just because it was just a couple of slides back, your family steam, the family steam movie night, they wanted to know more about that and how about attaining the movie license for doing that. Okay. Yeah, we do, we license with Swank motion pictures through our library consortium. So all of the movies that we show are licensed through Swank because we have a blanket license. We have a similar thing here in Nebraska here at the Nebraska Library Commission. We actually have funding and we purchase license for all of our public libraries have access to have that covered. That is totally awesome. It's a statewide movie license. Yeah, so check in with your, yeah, with if you can't do it yourself, check in with your state library and they might have something. Yeah, I know there's a couple of different options. Swank isn't the only one out there. Swank, but Swank now covers a lot of the Pixar, it covers the Disney, the Disney movies, it covers a lot of the Fox movies now. They've recently expanded. So a lot more of the movies are covered by Swank. So we've kind of figured that Swank gets us the most bang for our buck. Yeah, ours is through a company movie licensing, movie licensing USA. So yeah, I think that's actually where ours technically is, but I go through the Swank website. That's the company that authorizes the movie licensing USA. I believe I think that's what my certificate says anyway. But what we do is we pick a movie and then we try to find a few steam activities that kind of go along with that theme. The kids come in and do the movie or do the, we spend about an hour with the families in the front part of the library. We're a two-room library. So we set up the front room for the steam activities. The one activity that is being shown here, this was a coding activity through the 4-H program. And so they were doing that activity. This we were making slime, hence the plastic on the ground. And we do have some older kids that are coming. So it's fun. This was our Christmas program because they're making snowflakes out of toilet paper tubes. And then this was a balance program that we did. So we had all kinds of balance activities. It's one of our more popular programs. So it's really good. We really enjoy it. We usually have about between 15 and 20 people, which for us is really good for a program. So we have had upwards of 36, 36, 40 people. We have done some where we have people dressed up as the characters of the movie. Like we did Moana and we had a young lady dress up like Moana-ish. And we printed off pictures of Moana and she took a Sharpie and like signed, you know, did autographs for the kids. So it's really nice. We do popcorn and water usually, just because water is healthier. Plus, if you give pop to kids, it kind of winds them up and they get spilled all over the floor. At least water is only water. It doesn't stain or anything. Yeah. Right. But we really do, like the Christmas one, we try to make it a little more special. We try to do like a fruit tray and cupcakes one year. We had a volunteer that made a cupcake cake and she did it and it was the Grinch and every kid got a cupcake. She made Grinch punch for us. So it was just, it was really fun. This is just some of our outreach pictures. I really try to get out of the library as much as I can. Unfortunately, that's not a lot. Most of our outreach happens either on Fridays and Saturdays when I'm not scheduled to be in the library or in the evenings after we close. This picture up in the corner, it was, I attended our local parents as teachers group. And these are a couple of the parent educators. And I did some activities with all of the families that came. We have a really good partnership with our, we have a Burnsville Dam and Lake and we have a, they have a couple of campgrounds. So our Army Corps of Engineers Rangers, they contact us and these pictures here are some pictures from some of the programs I've done. This was like a read aloud program and they made raccoon puppets because we read a pocket full of kisses. And this was a camping program. We made s'mores, but it wasn't the traditional s'mores. It was waffle cones and fruit and chocolate chips. And we wrapped them in foil and put them in the campfire to melt the chocolate and the marshmallows through them. We did many marshmallows and each kid got to pick what they wanted in it. So it was fun. And then we read, and I had as many adults, if not more adults, than I had children attend that one. So it was pretty interesting. Our town does a Christmas parade usually every year. So a couple of years ago, I was actually nominated and won one of the citizens of the year awards for our town. And this was our library float and my citizen of the year float. We had a board member that had a little generator. So we were able to light up the float because it was an evening float. So it was really nice. And this is another program we had at the lake. It was a Halloween program. And we got to set up and decorate and do activities. And then they did trick or treating through the camp ground and we got to give out candy. So I always try to participate and dress up and everything. So I channeled my inner witch. And then this is one of the pictures my husband did a couple of years ago on our windows. And one of our younger patrons was excited to see it. So he lifted her up and so she could see it. And then we have volunteers that do outreach as well. This was at one of our outreach events for our small libraries create smart spaces community events that we had a fifth grade student that helped get community input for us. And we'll talk more about that in a little bit. These are just some more of the PBS special events that we've done. And other special events. This is the super wide kids. My husband is actually super wide in this one. And then my now 13 year old is Alpha Pig. He was 11 at the time. And then I have a couple of friends that dressed up as Princess Pee and Wonder Red. But we did PBS kids summer camps. They've got super wide and they've got oh gosh. I just blanked on the program. It's the math program. Were there special agents? Thank you. Odd Squad. My assistant just jogged my memory. Odd Squad. So this is Odd Squad camp. And this was super wide camp. Odd Squad is math. Super wide is phonics. Again if you're interested contact your PBS station and they can help get you. They have the complete curriculum. You don't have to develop anything. It's all right there. It's wonderful. And then we did a Princess Party a couple of years ago. So I dressed up my sons as princes. And they met the princesses at their car and escorted them into the library to try to make it a little more special. And this was one of our Halloween activities. We had a visit from Darth Vader. And then we did a happy birthday Dr. Seuss. And these were our participants. They got to eat birthday cake and make some special crafts. And then just summer reading programs, summer learning. We have a great partnership with the school system. They provide us funding and interventionists. And this is the interventionist a couple of years first several years. And the students that participated. This is just a picture of our library during one of our projects. We had volunteers that came and they did galaxy t-shirts. So they took black t-shirts and twisted them. And then sprayed bleach on them. And then they got to paint them. And they used white paint. It was just tempera paint. And then, no, I'm sorry, not tempera. I think it was acrylic. They used acrylic paints. And then they flipped to make the stars. They just flipped white paint, a little bit of white paint from the thing. If you're small, you take help any way you can to provide positive and interesting programs. This lady is a local crafter who does a little bit of everything. She's come and done wonderful programs for us. Again, this is a WVU extension person. And she comes every year that we can have programming. She comes and does yoga gorilla with the kids. This gentleman is from the cranberry glades. Monongahelia National Forest. And he brings snakes. So this is actually a timber rattlesnake on his pole. He brings a rattlesnake and a copperhead because those are the two venomous snakes that we have in West Virginia. But then he brings a bunch of other snakes that the kids can actually handle and touch. And then this was just some other activities. This was wonderful. We partner with our food bank. And they came and did a program for us. And they brought a cow. And the kids are actually milking the cow. Of course, it's not a real cow. But it's the same. They have got it rigged up to where it's the same motion of them milking a cow. It was one of the favorite activities of the kids that summer. We also do some adult programming. Although most of our programming is child or family-oriented, we are trying to branch out and do some adult programs. We did a 2020 adult reading challenge where each week we added something else to the basket. Unfortunately, it wasn't met with much participation. So we're going to take 2021 off and maybe try to revamp it. And then you always have adults that love the PBS Kids characters. So this is one of our school teachers. And she had to get her picture taken with Clifford. And then this was just one of our patrons who was here when my husband come out in the curious George costume. And she was like, do you care if I take a picture with George? I love George. I'm like, not at all. We've done kitty adoption fairs. So we had a cat rescue in our county. And so she brought some kittens and we did a rescue. And these two actually came home with me that night. This was a wreath class. We had a lady in our community that volunteered to do a wreath making class. We did charge, but it was strictly for the materials because these were not materials that we had on hand. And the lady bought the materials and we just provided the space for it. And then these are some painting programs. Again, we have a professional that comes in and guides these. So there is a charge, but it's only for her because she provides all of the materials and her time to help guide the class. And then we have a history alive program in West Virginia. And it's people that dress up as different historical characters. So we have Benjamin Franklin at the library. We had an evening with Benjamin Franklin a few years ago.  And this was one of our adult programs. They seemed to do okay once or twice, but then they kind of fizzle and lose interest. So we're trying to find the right recipe to try to do adult programs like we've been able to do our children. And then this is just COVID is not going to stop us. We have a question about one of the things you were talking about just before you jump into that. I want to make sure you want to know how did the basket work for adult reading? We had we set up like a checklist. And if you did 25, there was like 40 things on the checklist, 40 different books. It wasn't specific books, but it was read a book that was published the year that you were born.  Hey, Abis, we have a so it was just and you had to read, I believe it was set up, you had to have 25 on the checklist checked off to get your name in the drawing. And then if you did all 40, you got another ticket. And then out of all of the people that turned them in, we drew the names and we actually only had one person. So it was a really easy draw. But I really think COVID kind of hampered our success in that one, because it was just, I lost track of putting things in it some weeks. And then, you know, we didn't really promote it while we were out while we were shut down that much, because we were close to the public from March, mid March to June, the middle of June. And then we had people, of course, that said, well, you know, when we announced it, that that our winner had won. Well, I didn't even know it was happening. And I'm like, we had it in the newspaper, it was on social media, you know, we had flyers up at the library. I'm not sure, you know, short of taking a skyrider out. And while we're looking at these pictures, because some of this is in your library, right, correct, some of these pictures. And you mentioned you have just two rooms there, but someone wants to know what is, it looks like a pretty big building. What is your capacity for in there? We have 1,982 square feet. So we 36 to 40 is probably busting at the seams. I'm not sure exactly, fire regs, I don't know, because we've never even come close to actually meeting that. But with 36 to 40 people in here, we were, we were not crammed in like sardines, but we were pretty tight. So in order to do the painting nights, I actually move all of my public library, my public access computers, I move them and bring in tables and chairs. And we've gotten really good at utilizing every inch that we have of space, because our building, the front part of our building is an octagon, which makes it very difficult because there is just a lot of empty, useless, taken up space. Yeah, odd shape, yeah. And then our back room, half of our back room has bookshelves in it, because which is one of the things we're trying, we're raising money and funding to try to put shelving on the walls to try to free up the space in the middle of the floor. Sure, yeah. So we can do additional, we have more room for people, because we're almost at capacity with the with the program, with the after school program. We actually have a former, one of our former directors is now the town secretary. And she tells me all the time that I need to, I need to find a grant that will pay for an expansion because I've got grown the building. Yeah. Which is a nice, nice problem to have. It is, but it is frustrating and got to figure out what to do now. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And then this is some of our, whoops, sorry. This is some of our COVID stuff. You know, we didn't let COVID stop us. These are some of our summer volunteers. We did kits. These are some of our kits. And this is one of our, some of our families that did the kits they sent in pictures for us. We actually served with a partnership between the Mountaineer Food Bank, Braxton County Schools and local sponsors for our kits. We were able to provide 3,862 food bags, 5,100 meals and nearly 1,600 activity kits to at least 1,500 children in our area from mid-March to the beginning of September. So, and the school system provides funding and typically an interventionist for us for the summer. We didn't get the interventionist because of course we couldn't have anybody here. But we did partner with the WVU extension. They provided seed kits. And this is some of the seed kits that were planted and taken care of so the kids could grow their own vegetables. And then this was this year's pumpkin decorating contest entries. And they're the winners. COVID has really, we've tried to keep active, but COVID has really put a hamper on some of our stuff as it has everybody. We only had to the two entries for the pumpkin contest this year, but we're hoping that this coming year it'll be better. This is just a list of the grants that I've received, not I, the library. We've been really fortunate in our grant writing. We've been really prolific. And my assistant and I actually sat down and I've written since I started in July of 2015, I've written approximately 60 grants. And we've received most of them. We've not received 14. So it's a pretty good ratio. A lot of our programs, a lot of the stuff for our after school program has been provided by grants. And then just a lot of the extra stuff we are able to do is because of grants. We did receive a PLA digital lead grant, which allowed us to get 11 hot spots. And we had approximately 130 checkouts for the year that we had the hotspot grant. And just today we were able to, we secured the funding. And just today we put data back on the 10 hotspots that we had remaining. And we replaced the one and we were able to purchase another one. So we'll have 12 hotspots next week to, for next week to check out to people. I was really fortunate a few, several years ago to be an AmeriCorps VISTA for a year. And that program trained me for my grant writing. We did several grant writing trainings through the VISTA program. So that's how I learned how to write grants was through the VISTA program. And our board has even asked, we have, I have to do a monthly grant report now for our board.  So that's a pretty big deal. I was keeping them updated monthly before that, but they wanted it in writing. So that was no problem for me to do because I use Trello to track my grants. You can, I love Trello as a free, free service. And I just use it for myself, but I can invite other people to share on Trello. But I just use it to help keep track of my stuff as well. So I don't lose track of any of my grants or anything. So this is just a snapshot. Yeah, Trello is a great, you know, just management program that you use. It's free online option to just keep track of what you're doing in projects or multiple projects, especially like this. We have so many things going on, definitely. Yes, yeah. It's wonderful. It actually, it took me about a week to get everything set up because I've got multiple boards and everything and to get everything on each board that needed to be there. But once I got it set up, it's no time to maintain it. And it helps me, you know, I open it first thing in the morning and, you know, I look through it and see if there's anything that needs to be done. And, you know, it's really, it's really changed the way I am able to function because before it was all paper and, you know, different file folders and my memory and everything. And so the Trello has really made a big difference. Someone said you're talking about grants. Someone wants to know, and this might be one, if you have any suggestions for lesser known grants for small libraries? Once they're, people wouldn't normally hear about, you know, hear about ALAPLA, things like that. If you need, if you need to add to your collection, the Libre Foundation and the Pilcro Foundation, I haven't received those in a few years, but those are really great. I'm not sure if they're still giving awards or not, but they do annual awards to help you with those two are just for children or teen, children, juvenile or teen books. Look into your local foundations, your community foundations. Most every county or at least here in West Virginia, almost every other county in West Virginia, but the county I'm in, of course, is covered by some kind of a community foundation. They're good. Reach out if you have corporations in your area, like we have warehouser. We typically, every year we've gotten warehouser from 2016 to 2020, we received grants. 2021, we did not, we were not awarded for this year. They had given out additional help, so they didn't have as much to give for grants this year. But look, look at those places. Look at, you know, like Dix, if you're trying to do some kind of a healthy living, I know Target and Dix do healthy living. And the big thing is don't create a program to try to work for a grant. But if you have an idea for a program that you haven't gotten started, write the grant. The most they can tell you is, no, we're not going to fund your grant. And then you can try somewhere else. Exactly. And you can always put a pin in it and keep that on hold until you get the funding for the program. So really, you know, and some of the, some of the, like Gilder Learman, I don't know if that's history, the Gilder Learman Association or the Gilder Learman Foundation, I think it's a foundation. They do, you can sign up to be an affiliate library. And then they do several times throughout the year. They give little, they give like grants up to, I think it's $500 or $1,000 that you can do history programming with. That's how we were able to bring Ben Franklin and some of the other history alive people to our area was through those grants. Like the ARST, that's the Radiological Society of Technicians for, and we were able to, we applied and received a partnership grant for that for National Radiological Week. So we were able to buy a lot of like health books and puzzles that were, we bought Lego kits that were like hospitals and ambulances and stuff like that. So if you just, if you look, it's hard because there's a lot of grant programs that you can buy and pay to subscribe to. I've not had much luck with those. It's just happened to different webinars and different people talking is really how I've found all of my, you know, and don't, don't knock Google, don't knock doing a Google search for, you know, places that write library grants in West Virginia or if you have a specific program in mind, do the specific program and, you know. And I would say I do grant help libraries with grants here in Nebraska and think outside the box if not just library, but public service or community. You're part of the community and you're a public service and the grants might be called that instead. And then when you get your reading into them, it's like, ah, yes, we do fit their criteria. Now I can do it. So don't limit yourself just to the library. Yeah, exactly. We we've partnered and we've gotten grants for our after school program. And sometimes be creative. Like you said, think outside the box. Sometimes it's not, sometimes you have to think outside the box and like the previous lady that was talking about the grants, think big. You know, I wrote, I wrote my grant for warehouser one year for $14,000. They funded me for $3,200. But you know, it was something. Yeah. You know, I was able to do a portion of what I wanted to do. And that program that they didn't fund is still in the back of my head. And if I can find a way to get it funded, I will. And if you have a program that is big, you can also use multiple grants for one program. Yes. I know people apply for us. And they say, I've already got this much money from here and here from this foundation.  And that's okay too. Yeah. Yeah. And, and a lot of small libraries are afraid to write the big grants to ALA to not so much PLA because it is public libraries, but or at least the ones here in West Virginia. So they, you know, my theory is if you've got, if you want a grant and you've got the perfect program for that grant, write it. The most they can do is tell you no. And my philosophy is it's kind of like throwing spaghetti against the wall. Eventually, something is going to stick. So throw it out there and eventually something's going to stick. So I've actually written several grants where I was like, I don't even know why I wasted my time. They're never going to pick me. And it ended up that I received the grant. So don't just because you're small or, you know, you don't think you've got a good proposal.  And every grant that you get, most of them don't critique your, don't critique your proposal. If you get the opportunity, like the library's transforming communities, focus on small and rural libraries, we were, we're one of the first round recipients of that. They actually critique critiques and offered assistance on your grant proposal. So I really, you know, take advantage of that because it will help you grow as a grant writer. Okay. Oh, sorry. Nope. No. Okay. Let's go ahead with you. Okay. This is some of the equipment and some of the stuff that we did for our small libraries, Create Smart Spaces. It was OCLC Web Junction and ARSEL. It was supposed to be an 18-month process, but it turned more into like two years because of COVID. But thankfully, we were able to get most of our, most, if not all of our community engagement part done. This was our 11-year-old, fifth grade person. He was, he's my son. The school actually allowed him to sit at the table for the end of the year award ceremony to ask people to write down what they wanted for the community on our leaves to add to our wish tree. So he spent a whole day sitting and asking adults, you know, hey, please write down what you wish, what you would want to see in our community, not related to the library, but just our community as a whole. And he filled up our wish tree because when you're, when you're a one or a two-person staff, you don't have, you can't dedicate a whole day without volunteer help. So we were really fortunate that the school allowed him to sit, which I mean, if it had been an instructional day, he wouldn't have been able to do that. But because it was the end of the year, they weren't really learning anything. They were watching movies. So he gave up his time watching movies to sit and help us. This is just some of the equipment we were able to purchase. We really can't wait to be able to start this, start programs with this equipment. And we do have, we have started one, one of our programs has started and it's our children's cooking video series. My children are two of my children, my 11-year-old Josh and my 13-year-old Aaron and I do a monthly cooking video. Do we have enough time to show a couple minutes of that, Kristen? Yeah, I want to show it. Yeah, hold on just a sec here. I've got it over here on my screen. There we go. We've got Aaron and Josh here with us tonight again. We're going to be making quesadillas, parfait yogurt parfaites and peanut butter. So for our quesadillas, you need a quesadilla. You can use flour tortillas or corn tortillas. We personally like the flour. You can use them in any size. Soft shell, taco shells, tortillas, fajitas size. Then we have shredded cheese and then we have some pre-cooked fajita meat. It's chicken or beef. Aaron's going to be making our quesadillas tonight. Then we have for our yogurt parfaits. All right, I'm going to pause that right now so we don't run too long. Yeah, this is great. I didn't realize when you showed me this. This is a 20-minute video that you guys have here, almost 19 minutes. We actually, the first one was 30 minutes and I actually thought since we stepped through the ingredients and everything on this one, I thought it was going to be longer. But I didn't realize it was quite so choppy until I just sat and watched it. Oh, that's probably just coming through here. It's not actually choppy on my side. It's just, I think it's just coming through on the, through the GoToWebinar software. But no, it's nice and smooth. So we'll have this one for everybody. So if anyone wants to watch this, you can watch it without the bandwidth issues. But my boys really enjoyed doing that. The first month we did tacos in a bag and guacamole. And my son, my 11-year-old loves to learn new things and loves to learn how to cook. So he's all about it. My 13-year-old is a typical 13-year-old boy. I'll do it, but only because mom tells me I have to. That sounded like that. Yeah. So, but we do have a gentleman in the community. This is music, music and sound production. And he does podcasting. So he's going to mentor anybody that wants to start podcasting. We've got a cricket and a heat press. So people can come in and make t-shirts or decals. We did get a green screen with a video camera and a 35-millimeter DSLR digital camera. We're going to be doing some programming once the weather breaks with these things outside since we, right now under COVID restrictions, we have been increased to six people allowed in the building before we were at three. And one of those had to be, we had to have staff in here. So it really took it to two or one if both of us were here for something. But we're really, we utilize this for a lot with our after-school program or family movie nights. And I did want to mention that we have a wonderful group of volunteers that helps us with feeding the kids at the after-school program. We had parents that brought in snacks. And then we had a grandma and a great grandma that actually made food food. They made pepperoni rolls and they made spaghetti. They made lasagna, I think, one night. They made, so they actually, they made ham salad and tuna salad sandwiches. They really kept us fed. And then we had a community volunteer that brought in pepperoni pizza for everybody one night. So it was really nice to see that the community really cares and supports us. This is just a front picture of our building. It went through a facelift back in 2014. But the front part of the building has been here since 1976. So and this is all of my contact information. If you have any questions or would like some help finding a grant or learning how to do it, reach out. I'm always welcome to help or any programming questions. And we do try to keep up with our, Facebook is always the best one, but we do try to keep up with our Instagram and our Twitter. And we just started our YouTube channel. So currently there's only cooking videos on there, but we are hoping to start putting more videos on there. Well, that's a good place to start cooking videos and cooking shows are very popular. Absolutely. All right. Thank you so much, Beth. This is an awesome ideas and so many things that you've done there at the library, even with COVID. And you know, as we saw when you started off, you know, you're open actually while you're there. So if some people coming in do need to still wear the mask. So yes, yes, you're doing that. Yeah. Great ideas. I think lots of good comments and great, great creativity and ideas and so many things that you're doing. It's just amazing. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks so much. And there's all best contact info. Reach out to her just like all the other ones. The slides will be available with the recording. So you have all the information there again too for if you want to reach out to her with more questions.


Welcome back to my channel guys today. We are getting ready to head to the movies have a little Date for myself. I want to go see equalizer. So this is gonna be like a get ready with me For my solo date, I guess it's a solo date. I'm just gonna just chitchat with you guys I do have a vlog coming out this week and I'm trying to decide if I really want to share it because there's so many different pieces I did go to the Pilates class, which was really fun I have taken Pilates many many years ago and my mirror is here. So I'm looking here. So I've taken Pilates I've tried Pilates many many years ago not at a studio but um, I used to do Windsor Pilates at home and What I can say about Windsor Pilates is that It works. I was doing the buttons and thighs, which is like 20 minutes the leg sculpting There was like another 20 minute one in there That was like mixed with the two of them. So I did that for like Three months straight to be quite honest. My body was like on point it was I'm not gonna stick because I've never been the biggest girl, but it was very Sculpted and nice like not muscled as far as like weights and stuff But a nice shape. I did it for like three six months three months, but three Times two to two times a week. That's all I needed. So for this class, it was with the machines I've never used the machines before it still kind of felt exactly the same Just with a little bit more resistance because of the bands and then the machines that they use They do have a package where you could get unlimited sessions for 219 a month and Then they also have oh this look crazy They also have 179 for eight sessions a month and she said that it was a three-month commitment and I The girls some of the girls are like, uh But here's why I think it's good when I did the Pilates on my own without any machines. I Did it for three months at minimum I'm gonna it's two to three times a week But I know at minimum I was doing three because I was so excited to try it out when she said three months I said oh, that's the perfect amount of time if someone goes at minimum twice They are going to see a difference in their body and I think that's a really good way to start Some people may not be able to the four to afford that monthly if you can't Chow Going YouTube and Try to search the Windsor Pilates one. You don't need any equipment She does have some advance, but if you find like her first videos You will be fine and the new places do have like I said equipment and stuff, but Chow, I just know that I need to be around people Right now back in the day. I was fine with working out On my own at home, but now I'm just kind of like a little I get a little bored. I Get a little bored. I need to have like a class or something Getting up and going, you know To get my workout on It's not very like you're not gonna like sweating stuff So for those of you ladies who have like injuries and stuff You should always go speak to your doctor because it is kind of strenuous on your body If you have knee issues any back issues It's not gonna be like weights and stuff But you still always want to check to make sure that you won't injure yourself even more They pretty much just went through everything To show us how to use the machines, right? So I guess maybe I'll pop that in this video. I don't know Maybe I'll pop the beginning part in and just do this like a vlog sound But as of now, we're just gonna chit-chat at 179 for eight classes. Then there is 219 for unlimited classes It is expensive for some who live check-to-check Someone who has children someone who just can't afford to just dish out an extra $200 or 179 Like I said check YouTube And put it in like a list so you can actually use that As your workout if you are still okay with working out at home by yourself if you struggle with that maybe possibly get like a partner and You guys can do it together that may actually work really well Because you're not doing it by yourself All right But I would recommend Pilates especially for people with injuries any older people Who may struggle with certain things if you're not into like hit exercises because you guys know hit is like It's so hard I did it for many years. Oh, I did it for many years but Now let me let me rephrase that I did it for Maybe six months in total the training that I had he was really good He got me all the way together, but as time went on it's just it's too much Jumping and stuff from my knees The squatting and stuff is a bit too much and I just don't want to injure myself At my big age. Okay, I think it's gonna be worth it. I'm gonna do it for the three months and Just go super hard go as many times as I can it's not that far from me. So that was perfect The studio is not that big, but I definitely felt comfortable even with like COVID is running loose It looks like they get a pretty good crowd of girls that come in Because when we got there there was already a class in there like an actual class that class was actually really full come to think about it but yeah Pilates so on top of that we're eating healthy and possibly still walking in the park and stuff That's gonna help me just kind of get some movement going on this part of town cuz your girl Your girl be lazy over here some days, okay So I'm gonna go see equalizer my sister said it was good, so I'm gonna go check it out For myself I haven't been to the movies in a while. I don't know if I told you guys There is a tall girl event going on in Dallas, Texas. I Don't even know why I just did that just now in Dallas, Texas I'm gonna go and I want to start just connecting with other women Not necessarily tall, but women who do content with fashion if you are tall it'll be a plus You know just start connecting with those women on YouTube build like a little community If you are in Atlanta, I mean, I guess it really doesn't matter where you are cuz this event is in Dallas and I'm excited to go to it. I don't know who's going. I don't know how big it's gonna be But I'm sure gonna go and have a good time. It'll be my first event with like other women on social media So I'm hoping that it turns out really really nice the girl seems really nice who's Who's event it is From the pictures that I saw from the year before it looked really fun So maybe I can connect with some girlies And maybe we can make some noise to these brands to start catering to us. Okay, but yeah connecting with the girls on On social media, there's a lot of girls in Atlanta Who do content? It's kind of like I Don't know where they are like I see them on social media and stuff and then maybe I could reach out and like, you know Let's collab or something like that I'm really big on Energy so if someone kind of brushes me off, I won't ask again But I am interested in like, you know, just hanging out with some of the girlies and just You know building a new little Crew of girls at least to just do some things not necessarily hang out all the time, but just you know have some little fun with some of them that live here or Even in other states like, you know booking trips and stuff now. I do know that travel with people can either go good or bad So Yeah But um Yeah, I want to connect with some of the girls and and the thing is like I don't really know how to go about that part But I'm just going to figure out a way because I here's the thing about content You can do it by yourself, but sometimes you just need that Group of people that's doing the same thing as you because if you talk to friends and stuff Who don't have anything to do with social media. They're looking at you with ten heads They've been like, why are you doing that?  Blah blah blah blah So it's good to have like a little crew of girls Or even guys like guys who are into fashion Who are here? You know, who's about social media Trying to build like a brand Anything like that So I'm interested in That I'm gonna put on some of this bronzer this bronzer. I have been using forever It's still have a lot in here, but It's the one by Morphe leader this little bump on the side is killing me And watching the walking dead for like the 20th time and It's such a it's good until it gets to a certain part When Let me see when it starts to get when okay when Nick in came in I like that It was a bit extreme, but I liked it It's when the pink girl coat came in and the people with the with the white suits. That was a lot for me It just was like really kind of just Maybe I should have stopped it Maybe Rick should never like kind of went off to show Maybe they could he could have like, I don't know get back on top. I don't know but I'm slowing down watching it now it's because I know That the parts are coming up that I'm not into my favorite characters Michelle Dara actually Dara was my first favorite and then Rick Dara has a likable personality on that particular show Um, who else had a good personality? What's her name?  I haven't been to the movie in a while Just something to do. It's nice Work has been I mentioned this the other day, I think and I might have cut it out because I sometimes I don't like to talk about it, but Yeah I'm just trying to get my mind right because I know the Lord got something big for me in store and I'm just waiting for it, you know, like sometimes when things are happening and people are just Not nice. I Know the Lord has something in store for me Those people will Reap what they saw, you know They will This is my new Chanel I actually like this because I haven't been wearing my liner over my eye I literally had just been wearing this with the the late volume mascara And that's it.  It's dark. I had another one that was really nice This is spirit by mac now. Here's the thing It come up so pink on here But it's not Very chill. Like you guys know, I don't wear a ton of stuff on my face Just enough, but I'm starting to realize that the more I lose weight.  And where can I oh, where's my little thing? It must be in the other bathroom Let me go check something guys one second. All right. I don't know where it's at. So I'm gonna use this And just get some of these curls back in my hair throw our outfits together um Let me see The weather is so up and down so I don't know.  They just don't like you for no reason. I'm gonna do what you is them I'm saying like oh somebody got a bad vibe from you You got some jealous AF people out there You don't have to do nothing but be you They are always going to have something to say But for those people I always say like What's going on in your house, honey? What's happening over there? Like Do your kids like you?  Because I just it just boggles my mind like Like bullies like what are you doing? Like I don't understand. I don't get it. What's going on Just just think about we were in school matter of fact believe it was Monroe. It was her She talked about her story when she was young. I don't maybe high school I'm saying high school, but I remember her telling her story I don't know if it was in the same video when she was saying when she quit the job that she had Quit all five got fired one of the two But I think she quit She had a good job and then she talked about These girls that used to bully her in school, man Like these chicks was bullying her And I know for a fact them heifers Is probably following her on instagram now Yeah, one side looks better than the other Let me fix this one because this one looks a little stink Let me see if I can get it to look a little better A little more polished Yeah, I know they like looking at her stuff now Probably asking for advice.  What if you need them for something? I mean like anything Like literally literally anything You may need them for I don't know a kidney You know You can need them for and be careful how you treat people. That's all I'm saying Your karma may not even come back to you It may come back to your children It may come back to your children. It may come back to I don't know Child one side looks crazy. One side looks okay And we're gonna leave it just like that We're gonna leave it just like that Yeah, you never know That's what's important is to treat people with Treat people how do you want to be treated?  There's no way I need a photographer I do I don't I would if I could take my own grand photos and stuff I would I just feel like Maybe maybe I should just try it again because I I did it once. I had a good time doing it I didn't care and then all of a sudden I just kind of like Stopped I mean I know why This is why I like to do things I do like to do things by myself because I get them done But when you start bringing other folks in and they don't like Let's stay consistent and kind of throw you off your track And then it's like starting to go over And then we're out of here Let me put on my um Let me grab Trying to grab who's texting me my little brother All right guys, let me get dressed in and um, we're gonna go in the closet and find something to wear. All right All right guys, so I'm in the closet I'm trying to figure out what to throw on I'm not a hundred percent sure yet because the weather is not like Super hot Which is a good thing so I'm thinking just to throw on A pair of jeans I don't know I want to be comfortable though like Really comfortable. Let me take off these earrings because I had on some studs I had on some these little studs right here. These are from oh, can you guys see this? It's probably a little blurry Let me see. Can you see those? These are from Nordstrom And they're so cute Oh shoot.  Hold on I have to call my friend for her birthday. I almost forgot. Anyway, I am going to throw on I want to be comfortable today Like really chill and simple with my accessories today I'm probably just throwing these shorts. Absolutely. I don't know what to throw on Guys know I love my um David you're my braces. I want to get some more. I just have been I have not been buying things in the order that I'm supposed to I'm I'm really big on buying things that are That's gonna make an impact. So accessories are huge and so are Like jackets and stuff for me Love jackets. All right, so let's do this I'm actually gonna set my stuff up too But I'm gonna get ready I don't know I'm going to the movies.   I can literally just like Pull the strap in It's on And as far as glasses I'm gonna wear Chad the sun is gone But if anything I'll have these With some some slides not slides like thong sandals Let me see if I can get a better view I don't think you guys can get a better view Can you guys see? Yeah So that's the outfit movie night. Thank you guys for tuning in to this simple get ready with me for movie night Tonight, this is my little solo date outfit but simple express Jacket I got the sleeves tailored aritia tank Zara pants same Edelman sandals thong sandals monster garbiel Key glasses and thank you guys for tuning in. I will try to do a recap when I come back in Hopefully I can if I cannot do a recap Thank you for tuning in. Make sure you are subscribing to the channel Follow me on instagram at coco styles nyc and coco styles and why and my personal style blog Coco styles nyc.com and my style services coco styles ny.com And I'm on tickety tickety talk coco styles nyc and I will catch you guys in the next one. Bye guys