Fort Branch Johnson Township Public Library was recognized as one of the recipients of the Libraries Transforming Communities: Accessible Small and Rural Communities Grant, an American Library Association (ALA) initiative that provides community engagement and accessibility resources to small and rural libraries to help them better serve people with disabilities.
The competitive award comes with a $10,000 grant that will help the library create a more inclusive, welcoming, and sensory friendly environment for community members with sensory processing differences or other challenging conditions.
Through the grant sensory friendly furniture, interactive activity boards, manipulatives, augmentative communication devices, a dramatic play center, various learning resources, as well as a sensory room have been added to the library.
“After speaking to several Special education and Life skills staff from some of our local schools, as well as families with neurodivergent children, it became increasingly clear that there was a growing need in our area for services focused on these members of our community,” said Library Youth Coordinator Stephanie Williams. “And while we will be focusing on this group primarily, the changes we hope to create will also be beneficial to people with Dementia and Anxiety as well. Our overall goal is to improve accessibility of the library and make it more sensory friendly.”
“Libraries Transforming Communities: Accessible Small and Rural Communities is an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA) in collaboration with the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL).”