CURRENT POSITION Director, Schuylerville Public Library, NY DEGREE MSIS, State University of New York at Albany, 2008 FAST FACT Johnson once flew a red-eye to Ireland, rented a car, and toured the country in one day. FOLLOW linkedin.com/in/caitlin1; schuylervillelibrary.sals.edu; bit.ly/CountingDown2Kindergarten Photo by Mark Sweeney Photography

Feeding Minds and Bodies

On any given day, Schuylerville Public Library (SPL) patrons might find director Caitlin Johnson stacking apples or cleaning the public produce fridge. “Helping meet the more basic needs of our neighbors has led us to become known as the library with food,” Johnson says.

Collaboration with local farmers, food pantries, and the Southern Adirondack Library System, NY, as part of the Farm-2-Library program has allowed SPL to offer tens of thousands of pounds of fresh produce to patrons free of charge, complementing local food pantries whose hours are typically much shorter than SPL’s.

To fight food scarcity in this rural community, Johnson partnered with local organizations in 2017 to offer free lunches to kids and teens as part of SPL’s summer-reading programming. The first summer alone, SPL served 827 meals and saw a 427 percent increase in reading-program participation from the previous year.

Working with local nonprofits and neighbors, SPL provides free school supplies, winter hats and gloves, and holiday foods. Johnson partnered with two women to create the much-utilized Little Food Pantry at SPL, which is supported by public donations of shelf-stable foods. In addition, SPL eliminated fines in 2018 and in 2022 established a free wireless internet zone in a nearby park to meet patrons’ needs.

“I love the versatility of being a library director in a small, close-knit community,” Johnson says. “My passion for what I do comes from the desire to see our community succeed.”