Many thanks to Valerie Spooner from Ladysmith for this inspiring guest post!
We have a women’s shelter in our town that does a wonderful job, but residents don’t always feel comfortable coming to the library. Many of the women who use their services also have children, so I have been trying to build a relationship with the shelter, and with the families who live there, so that they feel comfortable bringing their children to storytimes and events at the library. Here are two of the outreach activities I have tried that have been really successful.
Foster kitten visit. I foster kittens for our local animal shelter. I want to raise heathy kittens with lots of social skills, so bringing them to visit the women’s shelter is great. The kittens get a chance to socialize with new people, and the shelter residents get a chance to play with some adorable kittens. It’s a win- win! This outreach activity requires only time and access to kittens. After this event some of the children came to visit me at the library, which was really exciting for me! I plan on repeating this event with my new batches of foster kittens.
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| Child and kittens socializing…or napping, as kittens tend to do. |
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| 10-day-old tiny nuggets. They’ll be ready for their play date when they are 5-6 weeks old. |
Nail decals. My director recently purchased a book about making your own nail decals and suggested that it would be a fun event to host at the library. I thought that I might like to practice on a smaller sized group first, so I asked if anyone at the women’s shelter would be interested. They were, so we set up a visit.
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| Materials needed: waterslide paper, small scissors, white nail polish, clear nail polish, tweezers, nail file, cotton balls, nail polish remover, small containers to hold water. And, of course, the book! Make Your Own Nail Decals by Janelle Estep |
This outreach event required a bit more prep time, but cost less than $20 total (and I have enough supplies left to repeat this with about 300 more people). I bought waterslide paper ($10), white nail polish ($2), and clear nail polish ($5 for the giant bottle that will last a really long time). Everything else we had on hand. The ladies chose designs from the book, which I printed onto the waterslide paper and sealed with clear nail polish. Then we painted their fingernails white (you don’t have to, but it does help the decals show up) and applied the decals. We topped their nails with more clear polish to keep everything in place. It does take about 30 minutes for the waterslide paper to seal, and then there is the drying time between coats of nail polish, but that gave me a chance to talk about storytimes and the Summer Library Program.