St. Paul Library receives mental health books after local fundraiser

A St. Paul family has made a contribution to the St. Paul Municipal Library to support mental health.

Rachel and Curtis Formanek set up the ‘Rustic Door’, a setting where families could come and take pictures while making a donation.

After Rachel asked her husband to build the scene with six old rustic doors and windows, and in late 2020 they established the fundraiser and collected $500.

“Our daughter was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. So that Christmas, I had decorated up the rustic door setting and decided I wanted to do a fundraiser,” said Formanek. “So I took two weeks to promote for families or individuals, just the general public to come and take photos for Christmas. And there was no cost incurred, if they wanted to make a donation, that was great,” she told Lakeland Connect. 

Last Thursday, after a long wait due to COVID, they used the money to donate several mental health books to the St. Paul Municipal Library. Local psychologist Lloyanne Yaremko-Galas matched the donation, seeing the need in the community. 

The materials tackle the subjects of borderline personality disorder, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, sexual assault, and trauma. 

“It was something that’s near and dear to my heart. I think one of the things that I really appreciate about this this project is that I understand that mental health is about being consistent, and it’s what we do daily, but it’s also about being informed, right?” said Yaremko-Galas. 

“So we need to understand if we have someone in our family or friends circle or even in our community who has a mental health issue or a diagnosis of some kind, without some knowledge or something to inform us, it’s like the blind leading the blind, we can love them and be on the sidelines, but we really don’t know how to support them.” 

The books are meant for a variety of ages to cover bases in many different aspects of mental disorders or situations.

“I contacted Lloyanne at Yaremko-Galas Counselling in St. Paul and asked if she would match the number of $500 and she graciously did. Thank you Lloyanne. And then we went ahead and she decided on which books would be beneficial to have regarding mental health, and then contacted the public library and asked if we could have a mental health section in the library, and they also accepted. So here we are today.”