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Posts from the ‘Ideas to Action 2021’ Category

Mar 16

Ideas to Action: A New Space for Mental Health at Racine Public Library

Ashley Cedeño, Racine Public Library

Before: Racine Public Library’s Sensory Room (view from far wall)

Who is your project reaching and how are you going about that?
This project was intended to reach anyone and everyone! We especially invite autistic people, disabled people, those with mental illness and parents and their young children to use the room. Essentially though, community members of all ages and abilities are able to use the room. The Racine Public Library’s sensory room is a private, quiet room full of calming toys and tools like bubble tanks, scent diffusers, tactile wall toys, sensory lights and more. It also includes a privacy screen and chair for nursing parents.

This project was proposed to create a space for individuals to meet sensory needs or have a mental health break, among other purposes. Providing this resource not only helps bridge gaps of a needed resource in the community, but it also helps break stigmas against mental health. Read more

Mar 15

Ideas to Action: D.R. Moon Memorial Library Connects Amish and Mennonite Students to Library Resources

Elizabeth Miniatt, D. R. Moon Memorial Library

Hello from Northern Wisconsin! My name is Elizabeth Miniatt and I am the director at the D.R. Moon Memorial Library, a small public library in Stanley, WI. We received a generous grant through the WiLS Ideas to Action fund in autumn of last year. Our project has the purpose of bringing curriculum and other educational resources to the rural Amish and Old Order Mennonite parochial and homeschools in our area. As these rural populations are rarely able to reach the library, we wanted to deliver resources and bring the library to them. We already have a program that has been going on for a few years now where we deliver library books to rural Amish and Old Order Mennonite schools. We wanted to expand that program to offer additional educational resources besides books.

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