The Callander Public Library has won the national TD Summer Reading Club Award for 2017.
Assistant Librarian Mellisa Sones accepted the $10,000 grand prize on behalf of the library, at the Manitoba Library Conference in Winnipeg this week.
The library won for its unique approach to the TD Summer Reading Club, which included two additional one-week camps run in partnership with FIRST Team 1305 Robotics, a Near North student robotics initiative.
A handful of the high school team members mentored some of the younger children, using one-on-one engineering activities.
“The children attended the summer reading program in the morning, and then they did robotics, math, and engineering activities in the afternoon. So that was kind of a unique partnership that I don’t think anyone else has done in any other libraries in Canada,” explained Helen McDonnell, library Chief Administrative Officer.
“I think that was part of the reason why they chose us for that award. The other part of it that they mentioned was that we also made sure that all of our activities in 2017 included something about it being Canada 150,” said McDonnell.
“We did one session with the Metis Nation of Ontario. We had them come in and help the kids make little canoes, they took them outside and did a scavenger hunt, activities like that,”
McDonnell said it was quite a unique summer at the library.
“We had a number of different partnerships. We had Mary Lambert who is a Canadian singer from British Columbia, come and perform songs all about Canada. And we also had Science North come as well, so the kids that were involved in the Robotics program got to experience Science North. Last summer their theme was ‘building,’ so that related to what we were working on in our camps.”
The prize money will be invested back into the library.
“I will be presenting some suggestions to the board, as to what we should do with the $10,000,” said the CEO.
Earlier in the week, the library received the prestigious Canadian Federation of University Women's National Library Award, beating out 11 other organizations.
“We’ve got extra money for programming already from the $4,000 given to us this week by the CFUW, so I think we could use this $10,000.for something different, maybe even in the new building, something unique in children’s programming.”
The library has outgrown its present location and is currently fundraising to build a new, modern building.
“We are moving forward right now with a corporate fundraising committee. We’ve got some interested persons who want to be involved in it, so that’s a really positive change for us in the last few weeks.”
Based on last year’s experience, the bilingual camps are already filling up for the summer. Registration is limited to just 14 youngsters per week.
The library now has its sights set on a non-monetary award to be handed out at the Northern Ontario Library Conference in Sudbury this fall.
