Colfax library seeking donations for emergency supplies

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX  —  The Colfax Public Library is seeking donations for a small amount of emergency supplies, such as non-perishable food items, bottled water and hygiene products.

“Part of my job is to pay attention to the needs of the community when people come through the door,” said Lisa Bragg-Hurlburt, director of the Colfax Public Library.

 “I was thinking, and we don’t have a lot of room, and we don’t need to recreate the community resources that are out there, but I would like to start keeping a shelf in the back that we could stock with a few backpacks if we have homeless people pass through the community,” she said.

The backpacks would contain information about local resources that are available in Dunn County to help people, along with bottled water, hygiene products, and lightweight non-perishable nutritious food items like snack bars and granola.

“We don’t have to have a ton of them on hand. But a few. It doesn’t happen often but it has happened, and I would like to be prepared,” Bragg-Hurlburt said.

Not long ago, a homeless woman passing through Colfax did stop at the library.

At the time, Bragg-Hurlburt was not expecting someone who was homeless to come into the library and had not given much thought about what she could do to help someone who was homeless.

“After she left, and I’d had a little while to think about it, I thought about what I could have done to help her. I was hoping she would come back, but she did not,” Bragg-Hurlburt said.

Another group of people in need that Bragg-Hurlburt sees are those who, toward the end of the month, run out of food or are very low on food.

“This is a repetitive thing that happens for them. I was thinking, I want to put it out to community, if they wanted to donate non-perishable food items to the library. We can’t make a huge store of them, but we could have some things on hand, and if we heard of a situation, of a particular family, we could connect them with those supplies,” she said.

Colfax does have the Caring Ministries Food Pantry, but accessing help from the food pantry requires calling and making an appointment. There also is a limit as to how many times people can use the Caring Ministries Food Pantry.

“It’s not that we can do anything too large here. We have very limited space,” Bragg-Hurlburt said.

“I see the library as working in coordination with what is already available, as a source of information, but also some immediate, practical help to offer people,” she said.

Food items that would be useful include canned goods, boxes of food that can be prepared, such as macaroni and cheese, and crackers and peanut butter.

“It would have to be food that we could store for a while. Nothing fancy. And nothing extremely bulky. “We don’t have a refrigerator to store food,” Bragg-Hurlburt said.

Bragg-Hurlburt also would like people to consider whether they have a skill that could be useful to the library. She is thinking in terms of a short call list of people who live in the community who know sign language or who speak Spanish or another language.

And perhaps people in the community have employment opportunities they can offer, she said.

What also would be helpful to have, on an as-needed basis, is a list of transportation available so people can go to Menomonie to get additional help, Bragg-Hurlburt said.

For some people, getting into a car and driving to Menomonie to meet with someone at Dunn County Human Services is simply not an option, she said.

“We want to do our part. We want to do things to help people in the community who come through our doors and who need a little help,” Bragg-Hurlburt said.

If you would be willing to donate backpacks, emergency items for the backpacks, non-perishable food items or have a skill you could offer, stop in the library to talk to Bragg-Hurlburt or give her a call at 715-962-4334.