Time to celebrate a fantastic summer of reading by the Orwell community! Our elementary aged children collectively read and reported over 200 hours. 8 tots and preschoolers participated in our Rubber Ducky Club, earning rubber ducks or dinos by completing early literacy tasks with their families. Adult patrons at OFL read and reported more than 91 books for our reading raffle which featured donated prizes like pottery by Mud Puppy Pottery and kyanite earrings by Sandra and Bill Owens.
Each July we offer weekly programs for kids. The Oceans of Possibilities theme or the 2022 Summer Reading Program provided loads of inspiration for the events.
Elementary aged kids learned about the macroinvertebrate creatures that live in our local ponds, the Battle of Valcour Island, creatures that live in the sea, and Vermontwaterway ecosystems. Every Thursday morning in July we entertained over 18 kids from our community.
Story Time on the Orwell Town Green featured lots of singing and silly ocean stories. The OFL librarian offered a local daycare a weekly story time, as well. We reached some 13 area families with young children through this fun weekly event.
Local tech enthusiast and educator, Rod Batschelet, offered 4 weeks of tech programming for our tweens and teens. Since participants returned week after week, we are calling it a great success.
And the true cherry on top of our 2022 summer was our Vermont Humanities Camp led by Liz Volpe and Sara Quesnel. Local kids in grades 5-8 participated in a free week long camp that connected our young people to the people and places around them in a way that embraced the in-between‘ness’ of their lives. The group read a novel with a survival theme, learned wilderness survival skills, and did loads of fun activities and challenges. This camp was made possible by a grant from the Vermont Humanities Council.
