Last year, our Office of Strategy and Continuous Improvement provided money through the COVID-19 Health Disparities Grant to the University of South Carolina’s Center for Rural and Primary Healthcare (CRPH). The CRPH in turn awarded mini grants to local libraries to implement two initiatives that proved successful this year.

Little Free Libraries
One of the programs accepted through the program was “Little Free Libraries,” created by the Center for Disability Resources (CDR) Library at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

Working with representatives from the Palmetto Police Partnership (P4) and the Office of Special Education Services (OSES), teams installed six Little Free Libraries across two counties within rural and underserved communities to promote better access to free, consumer-health resources. The books and brochures added to these Little Free Libraries contained information about consumer health, childhood trauma and development disabilities.

As the federal grant focus was on health disparities highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, these small libraires also included COVID-19 brochures from the National Library of Medicine that disseminated accurate, reliable health information about COVID-19 prevention, testing and vaccines to community members.

In Orangeburg, the Orangeburg County Health Department reported that their Little Free Library had been accessed 59 times between March 2023 and August 2023. In Williamsburg, their health department’s Little Free Library had been accessed 56 times in the same time frame, and community members started adding their own books. 

One of the sites stated that it helped their agency promote health equity by “providing sources of knowledge to our clients that can help improve and understand their overall health.”

Free and Fresh Fridge
Another activity approved through the mini-grant program was “Free and Fresh Fridge,” created by the Charleston County Public Library. The goal was to increase access to free, healthy produce to combat poor health outcomes linked to poor nutrition and support community members experiencing food insecurity as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two refrigerators were set up, one at St. Paul’s Hollywood Library and one at Otranto Road Library. At both locations, ingredient sheets were provided in English and Spanish. These sheets offered nutritional information, storage tips, serving sizes and two healthy recipes for each commonly used piece of produce. Additionally, these sites held COVID-19 health information and services, safety information from the CDC and flyers alerting patrons to free test kit distributions in the branches.

During its funding period, the Free and Fresh Fridges distributed over 7,600 pounds of produce supplied by community donations and local partners. In addition to this impressive about of produce, both libraries were also able to distribute 173 COVID-19 rapid test kits.

DHEC’s Office of Strategy and Continuous Improvement team is proud of the work that CRPH has done to promote health equity through this program and is excited to see where this work will continue in the future.