NAHANT – Memory Café is to return to Nahant after the pandemic, the Public Library Trustee Meeting said Tuesday.
The meeting also discussed the updates to the library renovation; and fostering closer relations with the Massachusett Tribe Tribe of Ponkapoag to raise public awareness of their role in American history.
According to Nahant Public Library Director Sharon Hawkes, Memory Café is a national initiative that is implemented in Nahant by the library in partnership with the Council on Aging and the Nahant Village Church.
The initiative aims at providing support for the people with dementia and to their caregivers, i.e., families who often feel isolated from the community. The café is “an opportunity to bond with their family members in a different way and have fun,” said Hawkes, inviting the community to keep a look at the library’s updates on the matter.
The meeting also discussed further updates to the library building renovation that had started before COVID. The vast part of the building funding, $200,000 comes from the Community Preservation Act. The remaining $50,000 comes from the Massachusetts Historical Commission and that implies that they “have a say”, according to Hawkes, in how the restoration is done to keep it up with federal standards for the historic buildings.
“It has been a painstaking process, as it should be, as it is an iconic historic building for the community,” said Hawkes.
She explained that at this stage the focus is on renovating the roofs, drainages, flushing, the back doors, and the windows. Although there has been a minor glitch with door boards, “pretty much everything goes according to plan,” and the builders are “on track to finishing it on time,” said Hawkes.
The Nahant Public Library building was constructed in 1895, and even then, it was a state of art, according to the library director.
“It is exciting to be able to prepare this building for the next 100 years,” said Hawkes.
The meeting further adopted the Land Acknowledgement, which, according to the participants, would be read at significant events at the library. The document is the result of the program initiated by Sagamore, or Chief Faries Gray, of the Massachusett Tribe of Ponkapoag, to forge stronger ties between the tribe and the town of Nahant.
The library supported the initiative to raise public awareness of the fact that the American history started 10,000 to 12,000 years before the colonial times, as well as to help the tribe feel that they are seen as “the people that still exist and feel less discriminated against,” said Hawkes.
However, according to the meeting, forging a stronger partnership is a matter that the town and not the library should decide on.
According to Hawkes, they were not nomadic, but they circled through several camping sites, and Nahant was one of them. The tribe used to rely on fishing, and for that reason there are some fishing artifacts at the library too.
“The point is to remember that there were people who lived here long before us,” said Hawkes.
Oksana Kotkina can be reached at [email protected].
