After a summer packed full of reading, fun and games, the Bonnyville Municipal Library will bring the curtain down on this year's Summer Reading Program on Friday, with organizers already stating the initiative has been a “huge success”
Since kicking off the program in June, Summer Reading Program Coordinator Katlyn Coulombe has worked hard to bring in individuals and organizations to read and teach something new to the children involved.
Among those acts were Professor Clickity Klunk, who put on a special show for over 100 kids July 23, and Alicia Fontaine, a representative from the Beaver River Watershed Alliance who last week talked to a group of 12 children about the importance of trees.
The session marked the third and final time Fontaine visited the library and she said she was more than happy to lend a hand and help educate and entertain the children whenever she could.
“I've done a lot of these events on behalf of the BRWA in the region this summer, but this is my third session at the library here in Bonnyville. Now I've introduced the children to and talked about the importance of trees, watersheds and the boreal forest,” Fontaine said. “I think that it's important to get out and teach this sort of thing to kids, because it's important they understand how things work.”
After joining the BRWA in January, Fontaine said she's finally finding her feet and settling down and said she was looking forward to getting involved even more in community events in the coming months.
“Protecting our watershed is the most important message I'm trying to get out there by participating in these sessions,” Fontaine said. “Now that I'm a little more settled into the area, I'd like to expand and reach out to as many youth organizations as possible and teach as many kids I can, because (these sessions) present the kids with a fantastic opportunity to learn new things and be educated about the environment. Hopefully by doing this it inspires these kids to be more environmentally mindful.”
Due to space issues at the library, Coloumbe said the program, which was operating daily from 9:30 to 11:30, was only available to 18 children at a time and that due to large demand, parents could only sign their kids up for a maximum of three weeks.
“The program ran for a total of six weeks and we were only supposed to have 16 kids involved each week, but we bumped that up to 18 because of the popularity of the program,” Coloumbe said. “We've had a lot of kids on the waiting list, so we've done our best to accommodate the demand and try and get as many people involved as possible.”
The theme for this year's program according to Coloumbe was ‘Go', which she said the children thoroughly enjoyed.
“The theme this year focused around the idea of traveling to different places, so we've been everywhere with these kids,” Coloumbe said. “We've been to space, we've been to see the dinosaurs along with all kinds of other fun stuff. We've done our best to make this program as fun and educational as possible.”
With a years experience now firmly under her belt, Coloumbe, a recent teaching graduate, said she was confident the success and popularity of this year's program would see the library's Summer Reading Program succeed in the future.
“It's really awesome to see how much fun and how inspired some of these kids are when it comes to reading during the summer,” Coloumbe said. “Some of them are just so excited to show me how much they have read in the morning and it's great to see that.”
“This has been an incredibly successful summer. We've had probably 50 kids pass through our doors, which is great because they're all socially interacting with each other. Just being able to dive into books and be around other kids is a very positive thing for these children. They get to meet new people, read different books and gain new experiences, so it's definitely beneficial for the kids involved.”
The library will be hosting a final party for all the children involved in this year's program on Friday, where each child involved will be entered into a draw to win the grand prize – an iPod Touch.
