It’s a Great Day at the Library Thanks to SaddleBrooke Community Outreach

In 2025, The SaddleBrooke Community Outreach (SBCO) Enrichment Program awarded a $5000 grant to the Hayden Public Library in Gila County. Hayden and its neighbor, Winkelman, are two very small rural towns about an hour north of SaddleBrooke. Hayden-Winkelman is an economically challenged area with limited activities for children other than the community pool and public school.

According to Veronica Hernandez, Gila County Public Services Librarian, the grant funded the purchase of books and various hands-on activities such as “Haunted Library,” “Christmas at the Library,” and “Winter Greens”.

During the Halloween season, the library was turned into a haunted house for children to tour. The back room was decorated with “spider webs” and glow-in-the dark creatures. Other sensory experiences included “diving for treasure”; children dipped their hands in a black lagoon-like substance (polymer) and retrieved small treasures such as plastic figurines.

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For Christmas, Santa and the Grinch made cameo appearances. Santa handed out small presents and read to the children. The Grinch did his best imitation of a grouch. Hands-on activities included creating and decorating Gingerbread Houses as well as Christmas cookie ornaments. Families enjoyed the community spirit and hot cocoa and appreciated the gifts of books, stuffed animals, and science kits.

The Hayden Public Library is fortunate to employ Jamie Wolgast as its Children’s Librarian. Ms Wolgast has a botany degree and is passionate about science education. She and local volunteers planted a sample raised-bed garden with both vegetable and flowering plants well-suited to the desert. The garden, along with the seed library, is not only a fun activity for the children and their parents but helps to encourage healthier eating in a community with only limited access to fresh vegetables and fruits. Hayden/Winkelman is not only a “food desert’ with limited local options for purchasing fresh foods and vegetables but is concerned with soil contamination from past mining activities, so encouraging the planting of raised gardens with fresh dirt is a valuable educational resource.

The SBCO grant allowed Ms Wolgast to offer other hands-on activities to promote science education. She recalled one teenager whose interest in science grew through using microscopes to examine insects and plants. Ms. Wolgast confidently predicts the teen to be a future scientist!