Warren County Public Library’s vision is to connect patrons to ideas and one another, and to partner with our community’s aspirations to become a vibrant, flourishing regional center. Our mission is to provide tools for discovery and opportunities for growth, supporting the community’s pursuit of information, skills, literacy, and knowledge.
With that in mind, we work in a variety of ways with groups and individuals to provide the tools needed to make opportunities available and accessible to the county’s population at large.
As an example, through its management of SOKY Center (formerly SoKY Marketplace), the library is now able to provide space as a small business incubator for those in the health and wellness industry, while concurrently using the pavilion located at 636 Center Street and adjacent brick building for library programs. The upstairs area is outfitted with a commercial kitchen, for food-based entrepreneurs, and the downstairs area has all that is needed for movement programs, including a padded floor and yoga equipment.
Because we are working with small business owners, most of the programs they provide are donation-based, meaning that participants are encouraged to donate what they can to support the programs they attend plus have the opportunity to give a little more for those who would like to attend but cannot afford it. It is a new model that provides support to individuals who want to get an enterprise off the ground but can’t yet rent a space, and it also provides a sliding-scale donation model for attendees, meaning people can pay what they can without pressure.
We also host free library programs at SOKY Center, including a monthly program called Memory Café, which provides a social hour for those with memory loss, dementia, or other neurodegenerative conditions, along with their caregivers and friends. It meets the first Tuesday of every month at 11:30am in the downstairs area of the brick building. We recently partnered with the Barren River Health Department for a free Emergency Preparedness series in the space, where participants were given the tools to help them prepare and build a kit that would be helpful in an emergency situation. Free programs like these can be found in the SOKY Center calendar (www.sokybg.org/events-wellness) as well as the library’s online calendar of events (warrenpl.org/calendar), viewable by selecting SOKY Center as a location filter.
Currently scheduled donation-based movement programs include…
•Monday: Soul Step at 5:30pm. This music-driven class combines step cardio dance, resistance training, and low-impact body weight movement.
•Tuesday: Moms on the Move at 10am. This mommy-and-me class combines an upbeat playlist with pilates, yoga and strength training and is geared toward mothers with young children.
•Wednesday: Mind Body Burn at 5pm. This dynamic and holistic workout blends breathwork, mindfulness, cardio, strength training, and core conditioning.
•Thursday: Soul Sculpt at 4:15pm. This Pilates-inspired class blends structured and beat-blended movements plus provides optional bands and ankle weights for added resistance.
•Saturday: Soul Yoga at 9am. This yoga class helps participants find harmony through breath and movement activities.
Gretchen Mitchell, SOKY Center Manager, has fully embraced her role and has the needed vision to ensure its success: “Managing the SOKY Center has brought me an immense amount of joy. To serve our community by offering an accessible space where people can connect, move, and build strength fills my bucket to the brim. This is, without a doubt, my dream job (one I never knew was my dream). I fully recognize that the wellness spaces can present various barriers, whether financial or the intimidation of just stepping into these spaces. That’s why our mission is to provide equitable quality of life programming that prioritizes accessibility, making sure that everyone feels welcome.”
To keep up with everything happening at SOKY Center, follow us on social media (@sokycenterbg on Facebook and Instagram), and check out our website, www.sokybg.org.
-by Ashley Fowlkes
Digital Content Manager, Warren County Public Library
