The Tupper Lightfoot Memorial Library in Brundidge has been awarded a Library and Service Technology Act (LSTA) grant that will provide means of preservation for local history/genealogy materials. The grant award is $4,900.

Theresa Trawick, head librarian, said the grant is described as “intergenerational” because its mission is to bring together young and old in the community to work on preserving history.

Trawick said the Tupper Lightfoot Memorial Library will work in partnership with the Brundidge Historical Society and the Business and Finance Academy at Pike County High School to develop its local history and genealogy collection and enhance access to it. The Alabama Department of Archives & History staff will serve as project consultants.

Trawick said she is very excited that the library has been awarded the grant and about the opportunity it provides to bond and strengthen the community. “We have a wealth of older citizens who have materials worth preserving,” she said. “We also have students at the Business and Finance Academy who are trained to scan items in electronic form.

“We will be working with the Brundidge Historical Society to locate materials and with students at the academy to help with the scanning of materials for preservation.”

The success of the preservation project will depend on the involvement of Brundidge residents and those in the surrounding communities. “We will need people to bring in printed materials and photographs of historical significance,” Trawick said. “A lot of our history, personal and community, is lost because it has hot been properly preserved. This grant will make it possible to preserve our community’s history in two ways. People can bring in materials to be electronically copied and then take the original copy home. Or they can allow the library to place the items in archive-quality folders and boxes to be preserved.”

Trawick said any items that tell the story of Brundidge and surrounding communities are worth preserving for future generations.

“Scrapbooks, memoirs, diaries, church minutes, club records, anything that tells the story of the community or its people,” she said. “We invite all of those, who would like to share their family histories with others or those who just enjoy history, to participate in archiving our memories.”

The Tupper Lightfoot Memorial Library will begin to develop its local history and genealogy collection in October.