Creating a safe space and community hub: Sara Knobel

Compassion, hard work and acceptance of everyone have been the guiding principles that have led Sara Knobel throughout her tenure as director of the Groton Public Library. Her dedication to the people of Groton and the surrounding community has led Tompkins Weekly to name Knobel our latest Hometown Hero. 

For 10 years prior to her move to Groton, Knobel worked in alumni development and grants management at Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3). “I learned about grants and fundraising [at TC3] when they did their last big capital campaign.” Then she got laid off, just after she had purchased a house in Groton. Though some people might consider this a catastrophe, Knobel did not see it that way. In fact, she viewed the situation as positive.

“I said, ‘That’s great,’” she said. “’This way, I already got the loan. Now I have time. I have unemployment severance from the school.’ So, I had seven months to look before I found this job.”

“You’ve got to look at the sunny side,” she added, revealing her overall outlook on life.

The library was the first place Knobel came to when she moved to Groton. She got a card, did some job searching and checked out movies and books. When she found out the director at the time was leaving, she asked the staff members if they were okay with her applying for the job.

“They all said, ‘We don’t want this job. You couldn’t pay us enough,’” Knobel said with a laugh. She was then approached by one of the Friends of the Groton Public Library board members, who asked her to apply for the job — and that was all the encouragement she needed.

“I had been coming to the library for the last year before I got hired, so I had time to learn the library and love it,” she said.

She also fell in love with the community.

“For me, there’s so many strong and intelligent women in this community. It’s been mind-blowing to me. For such a small, rural area, there are a lot of strong women. Everybody accepts everybody. It’s a very warm and welcoming area, and to find a job two miles from where I live and two miles from where I boarded my horses, I thought, ‘This is kind of perfect.’”

Not only was she already used to being in a management role from her time at TC3, but in her youth she did a lot of restaurant work.

“I would serve people, clean the bathroom, wash the dishes, do everything,” Knobel said. She took that work ethic with her through the rest of her career.

“I lead by example,” she said. “I’m not going to ask the staff to do something that I’m not willing to do.”

Knobel prioritizes hiring locals, if she can. “It just makes sense to me,” she said. And she tries to treat her staff well. “I’ve had people say to me, ‘You bend over backwards. You do too much.’ And I say, ‘If I can, why not?’”

Knobel has been known to provide a ride home to a staff member in need. She permitted one employee to bring her daughter to work with her every day. “It was great,” Knobel said of having the child around. “She grew up here.”

One of her least favorite statements is “because we’ve always done it that way.”

She started providing some food and running cooking classes in the library shortly after she took over as director. With an expansion to the library in 2021 that included a new kitchen and a large gathering space, she started up even more programming.

About a year ago, Knobel applied to have the library designated an official location for the Food Bank of the Southern Tier and was accepted. Now, she accepts hundreds of pounds of food to distribute at the library every week.

Sayre Paradiso, Health and Wellness Services office manager for TC3, New York State Immunization Information System coordinator and Panther Pantry & TC Community Closet manager, met Knobel at a Food Bank coalition meeting.

“She started attending, and we hit it off,” Paradiso said, describing Knobel as “a ball of energy and fun.”

“We have the same values, as far as making sure our communities are taken care of,” Paradiso added. “I came into the library and thought, ‘Oh my goodness, there’s so much potential here to do good things.’ I helped her fill out an application to become a Food Bank partner.”

Paradiso said she was struck by Knobel’s approach to providing food to those in need.

“She realizes dignity is a really big part of this,” Paradiso said. “You can’t just slap a program together and call it quits. You have to keep engaging with people.”

Paradiso also appreciates Knobel’s unique point of view when it comes to the library as a true community hub.

Visit Knobel at the library on any given day, and you are likely to meet multiple children, who run up to her with some exciting piece of news or poke their head into her office just to say hi.

“She has made the library a safe space for queer kids, and quote-unquote ‘latchkey kids,’” Paradiso said. “She gives them a little bit of autonomy in the space. It doesn’t have to be a strict sit-down-and-read kind of thing. … Realistically, that is what the future of libraries is going to look like. They are going to be community spaces and places for people to get together and collaborate.”

The library programming that Knobel has spearheaded is impressive, said Dan Maloney Hahn, Groton resident since 1977 and, along with his wife, Lisa, a library patron for many years.

“She’s a real spark plug in the community,” Dan said, “and brings real things into the community — things for the teens to use, cooking classes, movies. It’s really the center of culture and life in Groton and the surrounding area.”

“She makes the library an accepting place for everybody,” Lisa added.

“In Groton there is no grocery store,” she pointed out, adding that this makes people especially grateful for the extra opportunities to obtain free food.

“[Knobel] is not originally from Groton, but she has adopted it,” Lisa said, “and we have adopted her, is the way we feel.”

Shana Snyder, who has known Knobel for 10 years, echoes that sentiment. “I just don’t know where we’d be without the Groton library,” Snyder said. “[Knobel] is a gem, and we all look forward to what the future will bring with Sara at the helm.”

“Sara always makes the library a safe place for everyone,” added Snyder’s husband, Steve. “[She] listens to suggestions, provides opportunities for a wide variety of ages, infants to seniors, and has been a key part in teaching our children positive life lessons that can’t be learned in books.”