The library game boards and summer reading program store have been taken down. The programming room is silent. The young adult and adult volunteers who staffed the library store throughout the nine week summer reading program have returned to other activities. It has been a successful reading program with 3,567 participants. They came with English as a second language classes, exceptional needs classes, daycares, and their parents.
Programming for the summer months included an opening day program, preschool storytimes, Tuesdays in July for families and elementary school age children, and the August films.
A partnership with WROE ,one of the local radio stations, resulted in Tuesday morning preschool storytimes being presented by Chuck Lakefield, the radio's morning program host. Laughter and the body movement could be heard as the children, Chuck, and Donna Wineman, a staff member, "shook their sillies out" each week. 570 children and their parents attended this successful six week series .
The programs sponsored by Appleton Library Foundation Friends of Appleton Library Endowment Fund and the Virginia McMahon Fund included a comedy act, puppeteers, a magician, a storyteller/singer and the opening day program. The variety of presenters were appreciated by the community. Comments such as "bring the comedy team back again" were heard as attendees exited the programming room. A total of 1133 children attended the programs with their families.
Staff presented eleven programs to daycares and preschool children. A total of 1308 children came to the programs.
Individuals and area businesses supported the summer reading program. Donations were given by Jessica Joas, Carmen Spiegel, Kyle DeJardin, Fox Cities Children's Museum, Friends of Appleton Library, Old Country Buffet, Paradise Island Ice Cream and Yogurt, Valley Transit, Wisconsin Maritime Museum, and the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, and WROE.
Perhaps the summer library program can best be summed up by a letter received in August. The summer reading program "continues to be a great incentive for my children to maintain their reading during the summer. They are eager every day to go to the library and remind me that we need to go to the library today."
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last modified 9/8/98