Summer Reading Kickoff 2024

What is the Summer Reading Kickoff?

This event is a party that kicks off our Summer Reading Challenge. We want to let everyone know that they can sign up and start earning prizes just for reading. My idea behind this event was to combine local organizations, outdoor games, and snakes to create a cool event. 

Description:

Embark on a thrilling adventure as we launch into summer with our Summer Reading kickoff event! Prepare to journey through games, mingle with fellow adventurers from the community, and chart your own course by signing up for our Summer Reading program tailored for adventurers of all ages.

We will have:

• Outdoor games
• Regional Food Bank of America
• Fire Department
• ONIE Project
• Regional Food Bank
• Pet Food Pantry
• Oklahoma County OSU Extension
• Snakes
• Raffle

What I did to prepare

Community Partners

There was a lot of work that went into this event. One of the first things I did was to reach out to community partners by emailing, calling, or going through their website. This is the list of people and organizations I contacted.

• Period OKC
• Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma
• YMCA
• Pet Food Pantry of Oklahoma
• Goodwill
• Our nearby Food Pantry
• OSU Extention Office for Oklahoma County
• Sasquatch Shaved Ice
• Kona Ice
• True Dads
• ONIE - Nutrition Information and Education
• TFCU - Tinker Federal Credit Union
• True Sky - Credit Union
• Soonertarium
• Fire Department
• Police Department 
• Local author Nick Davis
• Local snake enthusiast Larry Daniel

As you can see from the list at the top, I was able to get a good amount of volunteers to come out! I was very excited to also have Nick Davis and Larry Daniels since I'm planning events with them in the future. We were able to promote those at Kickoff as well!

Outdoor Games

Another big aspect that I wanted was an outdoor area for games, jump ropes, and other fun things. I made two giant outdoor games. They were scrabble and memory. I'll talk about how I did that in a separate post! They were fun to have and I plan on using them again in a few months. 

I used my budget to purchase jump ropes, hula hoops, and ladder golf with extra bolas. I purchased 4 single-person jump ropes, that are adjustable, and 2 longer jump ropes that you need at least 3 people to use. The hula hoops were also adjustable and come apart for easy storage! They can be a good size for kids and adults. If you've never heard of ladder golf, it's a game where you toss bolas (two golf balls tied together with rope) at a ladder. It's lots of fun and I love it. You can read the rules for it here. So, all together we had 6 jump ropes, hula hoops, ladder golf, scrabble, and memory in our outside area. 

Raffle and Passport

I wanted to have a raffle that would encourage more people to come to the event. My budget for this was $50 so, I purchased a green scooter as the grand prize. I told Nick about my raffle idea and he loved it so much that he offered to give me 10 of his books as prizes! He signed all of them and was able to promote our upcoming events together even more. I also asked Nick if he'd like to do some of the raffle announcements and he came up with a fun bird-related pitch to get everyone's attention.

The "ticket" to be able to enter the raffle was filling out the passport. I made a passport for this event that encouraged guests to talk to the community partners and visit different areas of the event. They would get a passport stamp for each station and when they got all the stamps, they could fill out a raffle ticket. The guests thought this was so fun! The exhibitors liked it too since they were able to talk to more people. 

Snake Show

Larry Daniel and I have been working together to have a herp and invert exhibit. Having him at kickoff was just the cherry on top! Some people came just for the snakes. We had about 100 people come to see them. This was the easiest part for me since I just had to show him the room. We were going to do two separate shows however, we ended up doing one longer event. It worked out well.

These were the high points of the event. Now onto the smaller details of setup.

The Rest

We had two Summer Reading sign-up tables so guests could sign up right then and there. I put the passports here as well so they could be handed out and guests could immediately get their first stamp. I purchased temporary tattoos and had a table for them as well. There was also a water station outside with sidewalk chalk around it. 

Schedule

Above is how I assigned everyone to different areas. The top block is staff and the bottom is teen volunteers. I decided on 30 minute chucks because I didn't want anyone to be outside for too long. It was a very hot day with a high UV index so we made sure that everyone had sunscreen, water, and breaks in the AC as often as they needed. That was one of the important jobs of the floaters, to make sure no one was going to pass out. 

A few touching stories

We had a lot of people coming through our doors and I wanted to maintain a few interactions we had that made it feel extra special. 

One guest that visited Nick Davis's table, had already read his book and was delighted that she was able to meet the author. It was a big moment for Nick as well because he put out his first book last year and didn't expect anyone in this community to have already read it!

My coworker was talking to a family that said this event was the most fun they've had at a library since Covid.

I was able to teach a few of our younger guests to double dutch. This one girl, in particular, was determined to be able to jump into it but kept getting scared of being hit. She would try it, walk away, then return a few minutes later. Every time she walked away, I told her I was proud of her for trying. I couched her to try it each time and offered to jump in myself so she could see how it was done. After I jumped in twice, she felt a bit better about everything. We hyped her up and she was able to jump in! She was so excited! Her mom thanked us for working with her and a few nearby kids wanted to try it too after the great success.

One of my managers took the time to pull me aside and tell me how proud he was of me to put on such a big event. I told him about every step of my process for about three months so that felt really good. 

Takeaway

This event was amazing! I wanted to put some insightful thoughts here however, this event ran smoothly and I'm super proud of it. Our nearby library alternates between having a big kickoff and a smaller one. This year happened to be their smaller event so now we can alternate big and small to compliment each other. If you can put on an event like this, you should! Even if you have a smaller event, it lets guests know that summer is here and it's time to start reading!