N

In celebration of Earth Day April 22, The Coffee County Manchester Public Library was joined by Forestry Aides Chip Avera and Lisa Goodmaster with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture Forestry Wildland for Cannon and DeKalb Counties.

Youth Services Librarian Daphanie Gragg said it was the first time the library has hosted an Earth Day celebration.

“Our mission for the library is to create a safe space for children to come and learn,” she said. “We are all about being the central hub for the county and is exactly what we are for the home schoolers is we help with pretty much anything they need and this is a type of programming they can do that they wouldn’t have in a traditional school.”

Avera said he and Goodmaster work out of the Parker Hill Station in Cannon County, and there are several different aspects to their job, ranging from youth outreach to responding to wildfires and monitoring water quality at logging sites in the state.

“We can respond anywhere in the state as far as wildfires and helping out, we have other stations that we assist,” he said. “When we have programs like this we can go wherever we requested.”

As part of their program, children participated in a scavenger hunt made up of natural items like maple leafs and an artificial butterfly.

“The programs like today are wonderful,” Avera said. “We try to mix a little bit about the importance of trees to our health and our livelihood. How to keep the trees healthy, how fire can damage forests but also how fire helps forests because fire is a natural thing that helps rehabilitate forests. Also we will share a lot of uses that trees are used for and educate them on that.”

Gragg said Avera and Goodmaster will be returning to the library in June with Smokey the Bear in celebration of the beloved mascot’s 80th anniversary.

“We will offer his story and tell how he was found in a forest fire and about the progression of his life and how he became the spokesperson for us,” Avera said.

For more information about events at the Coffee County Manchester Public Library, visit www.coffeecountylibrary.org.