Local residents Danielle Gann-Lind and Jon Lawhead have a combined 26 years of experience of using de-escalation tactics.
They used that experience to help prepare local librarians and volunteers for any possible protests during this week’s Drag Story hours. Gann-Lind and Lawhead provided ways to help keep the event focused on the kids and families who are participating.
The Washoe County Library System is hosting two story hours this week: Thursday at the Downtown Reno Library and Saturday at the North Valleys Library.
Volunteers won’t be engaging with any protestors, Lawhead and Gann-Lind said. Instead, they are going to spread positivity at the event.
“Sometimes people think, ‘Well, why does that need training?’ Right? You’re just sort of standing there,” Lawhead said. “You’re not actually interfacing with the people who are yelling all of these hateful things. But that’s really physiologically corrosive, right? It’s super hard to stand there and just take a wall of negativity and not be in a position to go out and actually engage with that.”
Both trainers also mentioned that they hope volunteers and librarians took away a few key skills from the sessions, especially situational awareness and self-regulation.
All that self-regulation comes with a price, though. Gann-Lind said that Our Center, a local community hub for LGBTQ residents, would be creating a space for volunteers to vent after the story hours.
“We’re going to give them a safe space to vent if they need to vent to acknowledge that this is hard,” Gann-Lind said. “And it’s hard to stand on a line when people are perhaps threatening your existence or protesting something you believe strongly in.”
The trainers said that they are excited to be out at the story hours to welcome families to the library and create positive energy outside of the events. At the Drag Story Hour at Sparks Library last summer, a group of Proud Boys, a far-right hate group, protested the event and one man wearing Proud Boys attire approached the library holding a gun. No shots were fired.
Jose Davila IV is a corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project.
