Summer news from the Cedar Springs Public Library for June and July always centers on our annual Summer Reading Program. We go all out to make it the extravaganza of the entire year! This year was no exception. It’s true, people do read for fun and prizes!
Our reading logs were designed with a mission this year for ages 0-2, and five levels for PreK through 6th grades. For 7th grade through adult readers we logged number of books and pages read. Participants logged in as follows: Ages 0- 2: 8 finished their reading activities; PreK- 2nd grade: 84 participated; 1st – 3rd graders: 99 participated; 4th – 6th graders: 77 participated; 7th – 12 graders:17 participated, reading 59,478 pages & 17 hours via audio books (Joey Sherman read the most with 4,509 pages), adults – 61 participated, reading a total of 590 books or 151,561 pages and 10 audio books! Top readers were Cynthia Gross (16,973 pages) and Karyl Garrette (14,344 pages)!
We are a community of readers! We had a total of 20 different programs in 6 weeks with 2,317 in attendance overall. We had preschool programs, tween (4th – 6th grade) programs, teen programs, general family programs and adult programs. At our grand finale Reading Celebration Carnival, July 27, at Morley Park, 355 attended, including our 35 volunteers!
What fun we had! Our entire community was there or represented. We had games and prizes galore provided by our business partners, including eight Wii games, a motorized scooter, 400 bottles of water, bubbles enough for 300 children, hundreds of smaller prizes, inflatables, water games, water balloons and launchers, two bicycles, 400 ice cream sandwiches, 400 cans of pop products, 300 cookies and a cooler of drink, and a water trough to keep the water cold. It takes a community!
All of the City Departments were represented from the Fire, Police, to the Dept. of Public Works. Mayor Watson welcomed readers to the party, mixed with the crowd and oversaw the dunk tank event. City Councilor Pam Conley, garden club president Chris McFarlane and Parks and Rec director Amanda Gerhardt all got a good soaking!
The Boy Scouts, troop moms, sisters and friends helped staff games. Great music was provided by Larry and Deb Eadie. (See POST July 22 for an exhaustive list of our hometown heroes who provided programs, prizes and food for all 6 weeks.)
How do such programs happen? A Community is great from within…you make our community great. Judging by the numbers of you who used the library week after week, attended programs, read to your children, used the computers and checked out books, I’d say that we are a community of readers. Great things are in store for Cedar Springs!
As the school year approaches, the Library looks forward to providing weekly Tuesday and bimonthly Friday Story times for preschoolers. For adults, we have monthly book discussions centering around a great read every 3rd Monday of the month. September 7 begins our annual “READ TO RIDE” program with Elliott’s Amusements, the Red Flannel Festival and Jackie Gillow where students K-8th grades can read to earn 2 FREE tickets/coupons to ride the rides during Red Flannel Days. Download a reading log at redflannelfestival.org or cedarsprings.llcoop.org. Enjoy the rest of your summer!
