MANSFIELD — With the success of Amnesty Day last year, the Richland County Public Library system will have a Food For Fines week beginning May 14 and last until May 19.

“That was our first experience doing that,” Mary Frankenfield, deputy director at the library said. With Amnesty Day, a three-day event, customers could return their over-due books at no cost.

“The idea was, partly, to do a favor to our customers. Say, we know everyone is human, turn them in anyway. But also, we got a lot of materials back. At some point, I think people are afraid they won’t get their (library) cards back. It’s a good way to get our materials back.”

Starting May 14, the library will be adding a twist.

Food For Fines will allow customers to bring canned food along with their overdue books. Each non-perishable food item will wipe $1 off of the customer’s fine. Frankenfield said the limit is $25. Food given to the library will be given to a local pantry in the viscintiy of the library branch it was donated.

“A lot of libraries have done this. We wanted to give it a try,” she said. “The idea is, again, a nice benefit for more than one person where we can bring back some of our customers who haven’t come in for a while because they have such large fines and also we get to restock some of the food pantries in the area.”

The library believes in supporting communities, Frankenfield said. Connecting with a pantry in each area of the nine library branches ensures the donated food will stay within the community.

“This is super exciting me,” she said. “We are a library system for Richland County. We believe we are one organization that serves the county. We try and do things in such a way that we are all working in concert with one another.

“We also have the value that the branches serve the community they are in. For example, the Lexington branch has different interests, different needs than the branch in Butler. We want to honor that by focusing our collecting and our services and special things like Food For Fines to that specific community.

“I think it’s much more meaningful for someone to donate food for someone in their community with a need, rather than someone in a separate community.”

Frankenfield said this event is exciting because the current fine limit is $10. After that limit is reached, the Richland County Public Library card cannot be used. Now, she added, is a great opportunity to get your balance down to where a card could be used again and fill baskets with food for those in need.

This event has potential to be a win-win situation. Frankenfield said the library chose this time period because food pantries receive and give away a lot of food during the winter.

“We sort of wanted to wait,” she said. “We are assuming this is a time when they were more depleted than other times in the year. We also wanted to do this right before summer reading programs start. This is a way to potentially help them use the library all summer long.”

The library is asking for non-perishable foods. No glass will be accepted. The most needed foods are peanut butter, canned soup, tuna, chicken, rice and pasta.

“It’s simple in practice, but I think it will mean a lot to people,” Frankenfield said.