The South Carolina State Library is the recipient of a grant from the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM). This grant is the second from the NNLM to the State Library, to be used to purchase “kitchen in a box” kits for rural library locations and provide health literacy and culinary training for library staff.
The 12 partner libraries are in Abbeville, Aiken, Chester, Clarendon, Dillon, Jasper, Marion, Marlboro, Saluda, Williamsburg, and York counties. These rural public libraries will work with a local health partner to create stronger connections between the local library and the health organizations. The local partners include area health departments, school nutritionists, and local facilities such as Aiken’s Clyburn Center for Primary Care.
Due to COVID-19, most libraries are not yet planning in-person programming, so the State Library is working with various statewide partners to create virtual program options, printable handouts, and outdoor activities. The kits include necessary kitchen supplies, a collection of cookbooks, picture books for programming, and a Charlie Cart Project Curriculum Binder.
In 2018, we purchased our initial Charlie Cart mobile kitchen unit with LSTA funds to support the South Carolina Read Eat Grow program. In 2019, the South Carolina State Library received an NNLM grant to purchase a second cart named CeCe. This mobile kitchen unit was taken to rural library locations around the state to provide food literacy programming and was such a success, demand for food literacy programming immediately increased.
Building on two successful years of food literacy programs in partnership with public libraries and other local community organizations statewide, the State Library hopes to expand outreach to small rural communities. This project will support improved relationships between the public libraries and local community resources and promote health literacy for rural and underserved populations.
For more information, please contact Rebecca Antill, Youth Services Consultant, at rantill@statelibrary.sc.gov or (803) 734-8284.
This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, under Grant Number UG4LM012340 with the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
