Lewiston City Library to offer more outdoor gear after receiving U.S. Forest Service grant

The Lochsa River Corridor on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests. (Courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service)

With help from a new grant, the Lewiston City Library will offer more outdoor gear to its patrons starting December. 

This year, the Lewiston City Library was one of seven entities who received a grant from the National Forest Community Recreation Fund, a new pilot project aimed at supporting new or existing gear at libraries in communities near national forest system lands. The grant is funded through a partnership between the U.S. Forest Service and conservation organization, the Next 100 Coalition.

The grant will help the library offer gear kits for its members of the Valnet library consortium, a group of 48 public and school libraries in southeastern Washington and North Central Idaho who share library resources. 

“We’re excited to partner with the Lewiston City Library to support new ways for people of all ages and backgrounds to connect with public lands, learn about conservation, and inspire them to take an active role in stewardship,” Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests partnership coordinator Angela Edwards said in a press release. 

Lynn Johnson, Lewiston City Library director, said the library has loaned out fishing poles for many years, and it was looking to expand what it owned.

With the help of the grant, the library will offer new gear including a dutch oven kit, gold panning kits, birdwatching kits, day hike kits and tent camping kits, she said. 

“Libraries are about opportunity,” she said in the press release. “Whether you have limited means or lots of access and wealth, we want to help people of all means try something out. We’re close to a college so we hope college students might try new activities through this kit. We hope people of all means will use these kits as vehicles to find out what their forests have to offer.”