This year’s summer programs at the Humboldt County Library are jam-packed with things to keep all ages learning new things and busy all summer long with this year’s theme being “All Together Now”— highlighting togetherness and community.
“This year is all about what our community has to offer and how everyone’s welcome at the library,” explained Library Technician of Youth Services Jayme Wells.
Their featured program, the Reading Program begins June 11 and the Library is hosting a special Summer Kick-Off Party on June 14 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. where the community can come enjoy a free event with games and fun and still have the opportunity to sign up for different programs.
“Our big goal and what we want to reward kids for is making the choice every day to take time out of their day to sit down and read a book,” explained Wells.
Readers of all ages will have the opportunity to win age-appropriate prizes throughout the program and a grand prize at the end of the program in July at the special awards party, according to Wells. For kids, 20 minutes of reading will be counted on reading logs towards prizes and an hour of reading will be counting on adult reading logs towards prizes. Reading can also include audio books, magazines, the newspaper, and many more things, making it adaptive to everyone, with logs filled out based on the honor system.
“It’s really important for adults to be reading as well, because we want to have kids see adults reading and showing them that it’s something that’s really important and worth keeping up with throughout your lifetime,” she explained.
Wells has organized the other summer programs this year with the help of Humboldt County Librarian Jessica Anderson who wrote a grant that has helped make this year’s programs especially spectacular with adult programs hosted by local businesses off-site, which do require registration. A calendar of events at the Library can be found in the Great Basin Sun the last week of every month.
“Our adult programs this year are especially cool because Jessica wrote a grant for the Institute Museum and Library Archive Services and so this grant covers the cost for all of these programs. We wanted to highlight programs that already exist in our community that are available to adults, but we want us to cover all the costs so people can get a chance to experience them,” said Wells.
For tweens and teens (fifth through twelfth graders), the Library is offering a course in babysitting, an escape room, an opportunity to show off some serious art skills with a special project to beautify the entrance to the youth services entrance of the library, games, and more on Tuesdays at 2:30 p.m.
Adult programs include floral arrangement classes, meal prepping classes, baking classes, bowling, and painting, which are scheduled for different days and times at local businesses.
The Library is also offering programs for the whole family on Thursdays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. where families can show up at any time and make special crafts. Their regular programs, like Story Time (geared towards three to five year olds) and Baby Bounce (geared towards zero to three year olds) will also take place throughout the summer.
“If you say that maybe ‘I’m not like a big reader’ or something like that, it’s really just that you haven’t found the right book. Every person has the capabilities to be a reader. You just haven’t found the right books and that skill is a skill that you have to hone and you have different interests that you have to explore. So just bringing [people] into the library so they can experience what we have, like programming, they’ll probably walk around maybe find a book that they like,” said Wells.