Council on Aging, library earn WSU president's award

Council on Aging Executive Director Paige Collins poses with the #Cougslead sign at the banquet where COA received the President’s Award.

Youth Services Manager Sheri Miller, with interim WSU President Dan Bernardo at left, receives the President’s Award for Whitman County Libraries Tuesday, April 19.

Two Whitman County organizations in Colfax received the President's Award from Washington State University last week for their work with the university. Council on Aging and the Whitman County Library each received the award, and both groups said they were thrilled.

“It's really exciting,” said Kristie Kirkpatrick, library director in Colfax.

“I thought it was awesome,” said Paige Collins, executive director at Council on Aging. “We appreciate any kind of thanks, but having a little statue in our case is cool because it represents the whole staff. That's pretty awesome to us.”

Kirkpatrick said student groups chose partners within communities to recognize for the award, and three partners were recognized. Orphan Acres in Pullman was the third.

Kirkpatrick said it was the library's work with the Center for Civic Engagement that helped the library to be chosen. She specifically cited the Crazy 8's Club held at the library.

“Student mentors come after school to help with that,” she said. “It makes math fun. The kids don't really know they're learning. All of the classes we've had have filled up.”

Kirkpatrick said the Crazy 8's program is now in Palouse, Albion and Colfax – all staffed with student volunteers.

“We did additionally start that up in St. John with local community support because it's been so popular,” she said.

Collins said it was also the Council on Aging's work with the Center for Civic Engagement that helped them to be recognized.

“We have volunteers who volunteer with us at the food pantry quite often from the CCE,” she said. “They helped us out with our growing connections workshop recently, too.”

The growing connections workshop brought people together to learn about the Farm to Food Bank program, and Collins said it was the most successful Farm to Food Bank discussion put on by Northwest Harvest to date.

Both groups said they are looking forward to continuing to partner with WSU and provide opportunities for students. Kirkpatrick mentioned the little library project that WSU design students have been working on.

“We're the only one installed in Colfax,” she said. “There are five more coming.”

The additional five little libraries to be installed will be in Rosalia, Palouse, Albion, Tekoa and Uniontown. Each of the little libraries, Kirkpatrick said, are representative of the communities in which they will be installed.

“Students went to the communities and studied the communities,” she said. “They really designed it to fit the communities. They are really neat designs.”

Kirkpatrick said the Colfax little library has worked so far, and she hopes the same for the others when they go live.

“The intent with the little library was to hit some of our branches that have fewer hours,” she said.

Collins said the Council on Aging will be partnering with human development students this summer to have some interns.

“They appreciate us for allowing that as much as we appreciate the free help,” she said, noting the internships will be unpaid. “We appreciate each other. We're really thankful for the help we get.”

Both groups said they were grateful for the award and the recognition that comes with it. Kirkpatrick said the partnership between the library and WSU has been enabling for success.

“The award is just a testament of the value to the students and the community,” Kirkpatrick said. “It's just enabled us to do so many things we wouldn't have been able to. There's a lot of little things when I look at it.”

Collins said it was great to be recognized with many WSU students who also individually received the President's Award.

“It was jaw dropping how much some of those kids had done as students,” she said. “Those are the kids who are going to change the world. That made me feel really cool that we could be there with them.”