Volunteer spotlight: A library’s best friend

WINCHESTER — In small communities such as this with few resources, it often takes dedicated volunteers to make things happen.

Mike Davisson is one of those. Davisson, a devoted volunteer at the Winchester Community Library and chairperson of the library board, recently was named winner of the Idaho Library Association’s 2023 Friends of the Library award. Davisson was nominated by several other library board and community members who said his dedication, hard work and organizational skills keep the library running at a smooth pace.

“I was quite surprised and quite touched that people took the time to nominate me and write all the letters,” Davisson, 67, said recently while sitting down amidst the books in the small but amply stocked library.

The Winchester Community Library is one of eight libraries in the Prairie River Library District that includes Craigmont, Culdesac, Kamiah, Kooskia, Lapwai, Nezperce and Peck. Chris Case is the branch manager of the library and Davisson said she was the one who roped him into the job in the first place.

“When I moved to town I wanted to participate in the community and it evolved from there,” Davisson said. “The first time Chris saw me she thought she was going to have to call the police and escort me out of here — probably because I looked a little scruffy at that time.”

Case denies that but acknowledges that Davisson is her “organizer.” She is rich in creative ideas that she turns over to Davisson and the other volunteers to bring to fruition. And in a few short years the library has developed a thriving after-school program, a public space for WiFi, computer and printing services, an outdoor garden and a patio that serves as the venue for outdoor educational programs.

Davisson moved back to his hometown about five years ago. He retired from a career in public health in New York and Washington, D.C.

One of the first things he set out to do when he returned was get involved in the library.

“I wanted to do tutoring here,” he said. “I’ve done it for a long time. And (Case) has been looking for tutors, so I’ve mostly been doing that.”

Gradually Davisson’s other skills in organization and grant writing came into play. He became a member of the Friends of the Library and is the current president of the board.

“My goal has been to take ideas that Chris has and make them happen,” he said. “We started tutoring for a fair amount of time. And then she wanted to fix up the back so that it could be used in the summer. It wasn’t really usable, so the Friends project took on putting the patio in and I spent a lot of time working on that.”

Davisson said he has drawn on his background in grant writing for other projects but the library also has a small endowment that has paid for the patio and other improvements. This summer Case received a $2,500 grant from AARP to develop a container garden and students have been learning about horticulture.

Davisson credits Case with the success of the library and its popularity in the community.

“She’s very outgoing,” Davisson said. “She’s kind of the hub for after-school activities that go on here, which is part of the reason we decided we wanted to expand the library to fill some of the gaps in that we didn’t feel like education was covering.”

School-age students travel to Craigmont for school 8 miles away. Shortly after 4 p.m. during the week the kids pile off the buses and head straight for the library, where all sorts of activities are happening.

“She packs them in here,” Davisson said. “And during the day this is the place where people come to do things and the after-school program is quite the draw here.”

Davisson has learned from his own experience that relying on volunteers to keep something like the Winchester library operating requires some finesse in knowing what people can handle.

“If we’re going to recruit people to do something, we want a small, very well-defined project,” he said. “My experience with volunteering on projects is, unless you’re really committed to the project, you just get burned out.

“We can get a lot of people in here to do a project and then say, `OK, we’ve done this project, have a little celebration and move on.’ And then the next project comes and we round up (different) people so that we don’t burn people out.

“And that is a problem because it does take a fair amount of time. I’m retired and I enjoy doing this, so I don’t see it as a burden at all. Just figure out what needs to be done and then work to get the people in here to do it. So I have never had trouble recruiting people for short-term projects. Recruiting people for long-term projects is easy, but getting them to stick with it is almost impossible.”

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.