DC Library teams up with food shelves to help families

Summer can be a difficult time for families who rely on food shelves and/or free and reduced school meals for their daily nutrition. Food shelves generally see a drop in donations during the summer and schools are not in session to provide those needed meals.
For the second summer the Dodge Center Public Library is offering a way to help those individuals in need of food as well as taking care of those overdue library fines.
“Summer is a time of need,” Library Director Ingvild Herfindahl said. During the school year a parent can be assured that their child will receive one or two meals a day at the school but that option does not exist in the summer, she said.
In an effort to help, the library is waiving library fines for a donation of a non-perishable food item.
For each non-perishable food item donated by a library patron $1 will be taken off their library fine. And for patrons with no fines, $1 will be credited to a random child’s fine, Herfindahl said.
“We’ve had a good response,” she said, for the program which started June 1 and continues through Aug. 31.
Fines can add up, she said, especially for DVDs which are $1 a day. The fines for kids are 10 cents a day and for adults 25 cents a day for books.
All of the food donated will go to the Pantry of Faith in Dodge Center or the SEMCAC food shelf in Kasson.
Pantry of Faith, operated out of Faith Lutheran in Dodge Center, said that items they are particularly in need of are cereal, pancake mix, syrup, applesauce, peanut butter, tuna, Tuna Helper, canned vegetables, canned fruit, spaghetti sauce, spaghetti noodles, Chicken Helper, canned chicken and toilet paper.