MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Susan Herzog has always loved books, but illness keeps her homebound and away from her local library in Uptown. Thanks to Jennifer Samaha, a volunteer for Hennepin County's at-home service, Susan continues to check out and read countless library books each year.



Jennifer has personally delivered library books to Susan for about five years. Susan didn't know about Hennepin County's at-home service until a friend who worked at a library in Seattle came to visit and realized how illness kept her homebound. Susan's friend told her about the program. She called the library "immediately."

"If I don't have a certain number of books around, I get very nervous because then I start pacing," Susan told Patch. "I'm not much of a television person." After she retired, Jennifer, whose career involved working with people with physical and other disabilities, knew she wanted to volunteer in some way.

"I thought, hmm, what can I do in the community that will keep me active and be interesting," she said. "Not just a seat on a board." The personal visits and "human contact" involved in the at-home service interested Jennifer most, so she signed up. Through the visits, Jennifer said the patron and volunteer can build trust and a relationship. The patron is often cut off from their community, and letting a stranger into their home can be difficult. "But once a relationship gets established, then I have found individuals will often will try new kinds of materials or try subject areas that they might not have read in before," Jennifer said.

"Finding out that there's a wonderful array of craft books and cooking books can be extremely useful for persons who have limited resources and don't have ways to go out and get ideas in the community," she added. "That's very satisfying for the volunteer."

"My belief is you support the community by making sure that folks can get to those materials, whatever [their interests] may be."

Through her volunteer work, Jennifer has met people like Susan who have diverse interests and "extensive ideas" of what to check out from the library. Jennifer has a haul of loose leaf papers from Susan with long, hand-written lists of books to check out. "I always max out" [the library checkout limit], Susan said.