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Language: en

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the national medal for Museum and
Library Services is the nation's highest

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honor for libraries and museums that are
serving their communities in exceptional

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ways Cumberland County Public Library
director jod risher and Community member

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Willie Wright traveled to Washington
from fville North Carolina to receive

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the national medal and spoke to imls
about how the library impacts the

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community well Cumberland county is
about 324,000

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strong uh it is a diverse Community as
you would expect there's a strong

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military contingent within the community
and because of the presence of the

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military that that has added to um the
diversity of the community uh Ford Brag

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North Carolina is currently the
largest

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military
installation in the world in terms of

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personnel there are about 50 8 to 65,000
soldiers affiliated with that

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installation and many of the families
they live in the community and so as a

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result of living in the community they
Lo use the cand County Library System

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military personnel moved frequently and
they need information about the places

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that uh they're going to be going to and
once they arrive they can use the

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libraries to assist them I think the
thing though that helps many of our

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military person Personnel is the fact
that our system assists individuals with

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Career Development and so we have
opportunities for them to come in help

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them with resumés uh provide computers
if they need computers and then we

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actually have job fairs where uh
agencies will come in and set up in the

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library and individuals can come in and
be interviewed but as the the Ws um are

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are winding down and more soldiers are
coming back there are other needs that

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are emerging and we are now Gathering
resources and and studying and

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determining how best public libraries
can assist those soldiers who come back

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um as Wounded Warriors in in whatever
way in emotional ways or physical ways

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help assist them and their families in
the last few years with the economic

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downturn uh um our public libraries all
public libraries discovered a real need

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to participate in Workforce Development
in the community and we found that there

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there are a lot of people who have lost
their jobs or are trying to retrain

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they're they're seeing the need to
develop better skills usually in the

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area of
Technology uh we offer small classes

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that are are very low key for people who
are uh trying to gain these skills and

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offer one-on-one assistance
there are about uh 30% of the population

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is under 18 and that translates to the
public libraries and a need for um a

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strong children's programming uh
component you may have heard of the stem

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initiative and that's uh science
technology engineering and math there's

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a great need to encourage um young
people to pursue careers in those areas

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and you need to start young um and last
spring um there there was a North

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Carolina uh Science Festival and our
library participated uh and had over

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thousand over a thousand children uh
participate in a series of programs that

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included Robotics and ooey gooey science
experiments those those kinds of things

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that are fun and also excite children
and and and make them want to uh to look

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a little further into that area so so uh
we're an integral part of the community

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we're an anchor
institution and uh we're there to to

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help people grow in whatever way that
they decide they want to grow