Friends Going Global?

Outreach and Advocacy is part our mission as we all know, and we reached out hard last week! Who knows? One day the Friends may even be doing events on islands in the South Pacific, or Ferryville.

We were fortunate to have not one but two remote opportunities this past week, interacting with new people and promoting our library.

The First was at Prairie View Elementary’s “Let’s Taco ‘Bout Reading. Christine Harrington worked the table like the pro she is, stepping in for our Kari (who was sick - now on the mend) providing flyers of upcoming events to the parents, and De Soto Pirates bracelets to the kiddos.

When she ran out of flyers, she sprung into action, coordinating with Mr Kelly to get more copies. Never missing any opportunity to share with parents that we are a child friendly library with lots of new books and events coming up.

We saw some new faces and some familiar ones, and reached forty or so parents that evening. So hopefully, some more young readers will come to the library to partake in all the fabulousness on offer.

Thank you to Prairie View, Prairie View PTO, and Christine and Tammie!

The second event was Lansing’s 'Bounce Into Spring' on Saturday March 12th at TJ Hunters Banquet Hall.

The Library was invited by Lansing Main Street Coordinator Jackie Cooper and our Friend, MaryAnn Baldwin of The Works. The Friends provided a game and prizes focusing on promoting the library’s events and giving some lovely Iowans knowledge that our library exists for them too.

What was Bounce Into Spring you ask? In short, a kid explosion of the best kind. Several organizations came together to made a carnival to promote children-friendly activities coming up this year.

There was a bouncy house, face painting, and a very busy leprechaun making balloon creations. All the things were happening.

Christine and Damon really brought the event to life with our beautiful new banner, and a lollipop game and prizes. So many kids rescued pops from our makeshift river.

Christine got to talk to a entire new population of people about the library which made her very happy. She did well; over one hundred children came to our table!

Thank you to Lansing, Jackie, Mary Ann, Christine, Tammie, and Damon, and all the very sweet and lovely kids that came to meet us. Hopefully we made some new friends that will come to visit.

Damon and Christine setting up for kid explosion.