Last school year, Kayla Wilkinson was working on a homeschool lesson about Pennsylvania with her sons when she had a lightbulb moment.

The board member of Columbia Public Library took her boys to Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery, 219 E. Main St., Lititz, for a tour and thought perhaps the pretzel bakery and the library could collaborate so more people could enjoy the hands-on tour.

She brought the idea to library director Heather Beury, who worked with Sturgis general manager Michelle Curtis and owner Tim Snyder to create a pass that can be checked out of the Columbia Library entitling up to four people to a free tour of the bakery.

"Michelle brought up the idea of the collaboration to me, and I thought, 'I go to the library all the time,'" Snyder said. "It's a good idea."

The Columbia library introduced the pass in September, and it will be available to check out from the day after Labor Day through the day before Memorial Day each year. It's valid for up to four admissions and although it is housed in Columbia, it may be checked out for one week through any branch by anyone with a valid Lancaster County library card.

"The pass gives them a 25-minute historic tour and a pretzel twisting exercise," Curtis said, explaining that the Sturgis bakery dates to 1861 and is the oldest commercial pretzel bakery in the country. "They get to hear the history of Julius and how he started the bakery. They get to twist a pretzel and learn the significance of the shape and the meaning behind it. They also get to learn all of the traditional processes we use."

The pass is the first collaboration of its kind between the bakery and a local library, Curtis shared. "I thought it was a great way to get people from the other side of the county over here," she said. "It's great to have them here to visit us."

Beury is excited about people taking advantage of the pass. "It's important to get people to explore their communities but also to offer an affordable option with those partnerships for people to be able to get out and do things together," she commented. "It's really a community partnership. We want to encourage people to get out and see what is in their community."

The Columbia library has a similar partnership with the National Watch and Clock Museum, and both that pass and the pretzel pass are unique to the Columbia branch. The library also participates in museum pass programs for other locations throughout Lancaster County that are shared among other library branches.

Beury said the pass fits nicely with the mission of the library, which is to serve as a public resource.

"We launched STEM kits in the last year, manipulative kits in the last year," she remarked. "We are underway with Millersville University to launch digital literacy classes. We're a hub for the community. We're not just books anymore."

She hopes the library's community partnerships will continue to grow. "Our goal is always, 'How can we do it better for the community?'" she said. "How can we serve the community better?"

Curtis encourages people to come to Sturgis for the tour, whether they visited as children and are coming back as adults or it's their first time to the bakery.

"Bring your kids; get hands-on experience with history," she said, noting that tourgoers receive a pretzel sample to snack on at the end of the tour. "And who doesn't love pretzels?"

The pass requires a scheduled tour time and there are restrictions on its use, which are included in information distributed with the pass. For more information, visit https://columbiapubliclibrary.org.