Guest Post: Norwood Wellness Fair

If you're working in a library staffed by only one or two people (as many of the libraries in our system are), it can be hard to get out of the building and into the community. However, when you're able to do it, it really pays off. Today, Rebecca Donnelly of the Norwood Public Library talks about her library's role in organizing a community wellness fair:

Last year, our outreach committee decided to try something new to let the community know that the library is there for them: we put together a wellness fair. We held it in August in the Norwood Municipal Building, and about 50 people attended. There were booths, a Zumba class, and some other fun stuff. We got some feedback saying we might have more luck at a less busy time of year, so the committee scheduled another fair for March 14, 2015.

This time, Raelee Simcox, NPL Board Vice-President and Outreach Committee Chair started early, contacting vendors, health care organizations, and anyone else we could think of that had something to do with wellness. We invited Literacy of Northern New York, WIC, Canton-Potsdam Hospital and Massena Memorial Hospital, a local dance school, Head Start, a gluten-free bakery, a karate instructor, a Pi-Yo class, a Reiki practitioner who works with animals, health food and supplement vendors, even the cast of the school musical, since we were holding this year's fair at the much larger Norwood-Norfolk Central School. Raelee managed to get the hospitals to sponsor advertising for the fair, and the school advertised it on their marquee. For the first time, we even paid for advertising ourselves in addition to our typical listings in the classifieds, knowing that this would be a big event. An article ran in the Daily Courier-Observer the morning of the fair.

In all, 329 people participated in our Wellness Fair, and it cost us about $125 in advertising and $75 for a supplement to our insurance policy, since we were holding it offsite. I'm excited about keeping this going, since the community really seemed to respond to it. What I like best is that it's something people don't really expect of the library, yet it's in keeping with our mission to connect our library community with information.

Rebecca Donnelly, director of Norwood Public Library.