 here. All right. All right. So we are ready for our first presentation of the day on Big Talk from Small Libraries 2020. And we are starting with a local from Nebraska. Yay. As we broadcast here from Lincoln, Nebraska. Macy Lakoff is the Library Director at the Rock County Public Library in Bassett, Nebraska. And she is one of our rural and small libraries. Their population surfed 575. I believe you may be I'm just doing a quick scan. I believe you may be the smallest one we have this year. You are. How about that? I didn't look up this in the end of time. I probably should have. Yes, our first percent of the day is the smallest one of everyone. So I'm just going to hand over to you, Macy, take away and talk to us about why we need each other. All right, sounds great. Well, I just wanted to start off saying I'm so excited to be here and a big thanks to the Library Commission and the Rural Association for Rural and Small Libraries. I think this is such an awesome opportunity for small libraries to come together and share some of the things we've been working on and exchange ideas because we really do need each other to survive as small libraries. So to start off, like Krista said, my name is Macy Lakoff and I'm the library director over here at the Rock County Public Library in Bassett, Nebraska. We are located in North Central Nebraska in the beautiful Sandhills. We're kind of out in the middle of nowhere. I had to put it in perspective for people like to say that our nearest Wal-Mart is about two-ish hours away. So we are we're really located out in the middle of the Sandhills, but it's a wonderful place to be and we're so lucky to have the library that we do and the support that we have from our community. I've been working at this library for almost a year now. When I started last year, back in April, I was able to be part of an amazing opportunity for the Rock County Public Library and also just the community in general. Today, I'm going to talk about that and how the library partnered with another organization in town to secure a grant for funding to give kids an out of this world summer reading experience as a little play on words for the summer reading theme from last year. Get to the next slide. Okay, and here's a little overview of what I'm going to be talking about today. I'm going to give a background on our library and the other organization that was involved, what grant we ended up applying for, the process of the grant, our plan to use the grant money, what we did throughout the summer, and then a little personal advice on finding and filling out grants. I'm definitely no expert. I'm pretty new in this, but just some thoughts that I had after going through the process. About our library, we are located in the county seat, which is in in Bassett, and we serve a population of about 575 people. After going through many locations, this permanent library was finally established in 1969. And the picture on the slide is where we are right now. That's what our library looks like. We just celebrated our 50th anniversary back in September. We have two full time staff members and one part time. Thank you. Our library is you can kind of see in the picture, we're just one big open rectangle. We have a little office space, but otherwise the library is completely open. We have nine public access computers, a little fireplace reading area for people to read newspapers and magazines. We have a TV for the kids to come in and watch movies after school and a little small children's area set up with the trains and Legos and building blocks and all that fun stuff for them when they come in. A few of the popular services that we are able to offer at our library are preschool story hours, book discussions, the first grade class from the elementary school comes in once a month and visits us. I go to long term care facility in town and take them books as needed. Our summer reading program is pretty well attended for the size of our town. And we also do various events throughout the month and let organizations come in as needed to host meetings if they need a space. And even though we are so small and we have such a small area, I like to think of us as small, but very mighty for what we are able to provide for our community. Next, this is the organization that we partnered with in town to get this grant. It's called the Old Feed Store Art Center, and this is fairly new to our community. It was finished in January of 2018. So it's really not that old. It took many, many, many passionate community members to renovate this old building on Main Street and get it to what it is now. It had been an abandoned building for a while, and the Rock County Growth Incorporated, which is a nonprofit development group, bought this building for $25,000 with funds that were donated by a gentleman named Francis Kramer, who was a rancher that passed away back in 2016, and he wanted to leave some type of a legacy for his community to enjoy. And this Art Center was kind of what came from that money that he donated. It now offers, now that it's all done, it offers 3,200 square foot of creative space. There's permanent exhibition and local artist galleries, the studios, a classroom, workshop, and hopefully someday there'll be a sculpture guarded in the back to host some events. And the cool thing, it was built for the community, by the community, and they bring in bigger artists like from the Carney Art Center, and they also bring in lots of local artists and they get to display their art throughout the Art Center, and they can have a little gallery opening, they can sell their art, have their personal information out. So it's a really neat thing that we have in our small town. And even though it is focused on art, the board members of the Art Center are amazing and they're always looking for other ways that they can partner with other organizations to bring in different events to the Art Center, because it is such a cool space. So when we were going through this grant writing and trying to figure out what kind of a program we could offer, it was kind of a no-brainer to include this old feed store Art Center. Next up, I'm going to talk about the actual grant itself. So me being an employee of the Rock County Public Library and the Art Center itself, for the two that went together to do this grant funded by the Nebraska Community Foundation, the grant is called the Youth Engagement and Development Grant. It was actually brought to my attention by someone in the community who was involved in the Rock County Growth Organization and they thought that the library summer reading program could benefit from something like this if we were awarded. And once we actually got the grant in our hands and started to look over what it offers and what we could get out of this grant, we started to think of all the amazing things that we could do with this money and we knew that we wanted to go forward with it and really try to develop something cool for the youth in our community. And here I'm going to read the purpose of the grants. There's three different sections that explain the purpose. The first one is to encourage the start of new programs, improve existing programs, and contribute to new programs that will engage youth in Nebraska's hometowns where there is a Nebraska Community Affiliated Fund to leverage grants made by the Nebraska Community Foundation's Affiliated Funds for Youth Engagement and Development Programs and to be a catalyst for Nebraska Community Foundation's Affiliated Funds to consider granting to youth engagement and development programs. So with that being the purpose, after reading through it we honestly thought it was a pretty vague description which that can be good and bad, good in a way of we could really let our creativity fly on what we wanted to bring the community because there really were no limits on what we could bring. It was up to us what we wanted to try to get to our community but it's also challenging when grants are that open just because if you have a completely open canvas to work with that can be quite a challenge because it's hard to figure out where you're going to start with the grant writing and what you do want to accomplish with that. There wasn't very many requirements of this grant. The biggest one being that you had to have a Nebraska Community Foundation affiliated fund in your hometown then you just had to complete the application and get it set into the Nebraska Community Foundation. And I want to make a note that Bassett does have an affiliated fund the Rock County Growth Organization that I talked about that actually helped get that art center up and running is our Affiliated Fund in town and we are so lucky to have that group and they're an awesome organization in town and very active in our community. So knowing that we had that requirement fulfilled we had that affiliated fund it was time to see what we could come up with and start applying for something like this for our community. So the next step is to brainstorm and I don't know how many other libraries can relate to this picture but I feel like that's what my mind looks like half the time half my days. So the hardest part the hardest part I feel like it looks very familiar to all of us yeah I feel like that morning I felt like that yeah I feel like this a lot but it's great to have all those thoughts going but sometimes when you have to get them down on paper that can be the hardest part. So luckily even though the Purpose Other grant was pretty vague there are three grant areas that you were able to choose from and those were the first one was the planning grant and this is used to support the implementation of a new youth engagement and development program that focuses on new activities education technical support etc. The next one was the enhancement side and that was used to support the enhancement of an existing youth engagement and development program and the last one is the catalyst side and that's used to support the implementation of new youth engagement and development programs focusing more on the philanthropy side of things leadership civic engagement and entrepreneurship so after looking through these grant areas and trying to nail down what we wanted to do we decided the best fit for what we had in mind was the planning grant and we wanted to we wanted to create wanted to provide a creative twist on what we could offer the youth this summer to kind of make our grant stand out a little bit and that is where we decided we needed to work with another organization in town to really show what we wanted to develop and just I'm sure a lot of small libraries small towns can relate to this but being so rural we have to depend on each other so much there's not a lot of funds there's a lot of organizations but a lot of times those organizations themselves don't have all the funds that they need to put on awesome events that they can and so we sometimes have to partner with each other well not sometimes a lot of times we have to partner with each other to bring our resources together and really provide something awesome for our community so after we decided the art center was a great fit for us we reached out to the art teacher in town to see if she'd be willing to head up the activities that would be happening at the art center and our art teacher is fairly new to town and she has been an awesome addition she's she steps up all the time to take on new activities outside of the box thinking so she was definitely willing to help us and be the one to head this project if we were going to be funded for it next i'm going to talk about the summary of the program that we had that we put into our application and without going too much into detail I just wanted to highlight the main goal of our program I have it in red at the bottom but our main goal was to bring in new activities for the kids that aren't typically found in rule areas we have a limited budget for summer reading and by limited it is very small we ask for donations throughout the throughout the businesses and organizations in town and they do a great job at providing for us but we still still have a very limited budget for summer reading and also because of where we're located like I said the closest walmart to us is about two-ish hours away so we are very far about a four-hour drive to Lincoln very far for people to come out and bring their activities to us and we have a small audience even though we are small but mighty we just don't have the numbers that bigger libraries are able to pull for some of their events just because of where we are and the population that we serve so our thoughts that if we were allowed to this grant if we were granted this money we wouldn't have to worry about anything that came with trying to bring in bigger events into our town we would just be able to seek out what we wanted and bring it to our community without worrying about cost and for a small town library that's a pretty big deal to have that piece of mind that you can kind of go out there and get what you want without having to worry about if it's going to completely destroy your budget or not and then the final step of this grant was to make sure that we were approved from our local affiliated fund since this grant is a match grant so it has to match one to one so our local fund granted us $2,500 to put towards the match so we could get a total of $5,000 if the Nebraska community foundation approved our grant so after checking all the boxes working with the art center on ideas and lots and lots and lots of revising we were able to send in our application and I'm sure the suspense is absolutely killing you if we got this grant or not but we finally got the word that we were approved for this grant funding for the full $5,000 and then the fund really got to begin on what we were going to do with this money now that we have the money I'm going to talk a little bit about what the grant money was used for and the ideas that we were able to put into place with this money that we had the first thing we did we had professionally printed calendars with the library and the art center events events listed on it we had a summer reading kickoff party we had the TEI landmark robotics and coding crate we were able to supply all the supplies that the art center needed we had the planetarium come to town and there at the end of the summer there was a pool and pizza party for kids who participated in both events at the library or at the art center so the first thing I want to talk about are the summer reading calendars that we were able to get printed out I'm usually we kind of have a list of what's going on for the summer but actually having legit calendars for both months where we had the most activities going on was huge for participation and getting people in our doors to the events before we were able to print them obviously we had to figure out nail down what we were going to do for the whole summer what events we could offer what was going to be happening at the library and what was going to be happening over here or over at the art center and it ended up working out great for the art teacher to do all of her classes on Mondays so on our calendar you can see all the classes in purple on Mondays all happened at the art center because we only have having two employees full-time one of us works Mondays one of us works Fridays and then we're both here the middle of the week so having her be able to take on the Mondays of the week was a great help and the art teacher also she was great with this coordinated the classes that she taught to go with the summer reading theme so we kind of left the art side up to her she could do whatever she wanted but she found out the library summer reading theme the universe of stories and she took all of her art events that she offered and geared them towards that so they really got a full a full scope of the summer reading theme being here and at the art center the rest of the activities did happen during the middle of the week and those all happened at the library since we had more staff available to help at that time and once all of the activities were finalized we had an idea of the bigger activities we were going to bring in we finished this off as a PDF on publisher and we sent it to a local print shop and they printed it off on kind of a thicker piece of paper that was glossy front and back and we were able to distribute them to all of the kids in the elementary school and the preschools in town and I think that really helped us a lot gain interest gain excitement it was really cool that they could see the times on the calendars they could see what the activities were some of them had different ages that we recommended and it was just great for us to have all of this put in place before we actually started this program and one of the biggest things we wanted to do was draw attention to our program before it actually started so we came up with doing a little summer reading kickoff party and this was located right outside the library can see in that middle picture we served our food out of the garage of the library we brought in two large bounce houses that were set up outside in the grass in the middle of the street we were able to get a study ordinance to block off the street and have a little block party for the day we served a meal of hot dogs and chips and somebody in town even had a little candy a cotton candy maker that they donated to us that we could give the kids and the families that came some cotton candy to take home we kept the library open during this time that way kids could come in and kids and parents could come in and sign up for summer reading and kind of get a feel for all the things we were going to offer and just know that we were available during that time so they could get all those papers signed and then they wouldn't have to worry about it and the kids could just come and enjoy activities throughout the summer and this was open to the whole community you didn't have to you don't have to be signed up for summer reading we encouraged it throughout the night but it was a free event all the communities family members could come and it was just a great way to start off summer reading and really gain some excitement and the town gave us so much support for this it was the first time we've done something like this and I really hope we can do it again and again just because generating that excitement for a small area is something you kind of have to do to get people interested and excited about what you're doing the next thing we did was we had the idea of getting one of these makerspace in a crate boxes from tei landmark we ended up going with the robotics and coding kit because that seems to be pretty popular in this area I know the elementary kids have coding club once or twice a week so we thought bring them something maybe provide a few few extra robots that they don't get to work with already but there's already an interest in the schools so we went with this crate it really this is the first time we've ever gotten a crate from them and it really helped make the activities for summer reading go smooth with the kit you get a very detailed instruction manual that recommends ages for each activity and instructions on what to do and this was great for me because when it comes to the technology side of things especially the whole idea of coding and all of that I'm not the greatest I can learn but having it all laid out in order what you should do instructions on what you can tell the kids to do was really helpful and it helped keep the activities exciting and also run smooth for us at the same time which is kind of a win win I have some pictures of the popular robots that we used so the first activity we did was these little Bristol bots they're a little motorized robots little toothbrush heads powered by a small battery and the awesome part all the materials were provided for 12 kids in this kit the next ones we used were dash and dot those little blue guys they were easy entertainment for a variety of ages of kiddos you attach or you hook them up you sync them up with a smartphone or smart device iPad tablet whatever you have and you download their app and then you can do there's games and challenges and they all all those games and challenges have that coding aspect to them so while they're doing the games and making these little robots move around they're also practicing coding now the one we used was the sphero spark plus the kids have used this one before so they had a blast with these the only thing I wish is we could have had way more of these little robots we only got one in our crate and having groups of 12 to 14 kids and just one robot got to be trying at times and the kids tend to get a little bored so if you're able to have a few more few more activities like this provided by I know the schools have some or just put them together that would have worked a little better for us but it still is a great little robot to have that's easy to use this next one is the Arduino and we were actually not set the right pieces for this one we had somebody who knew a little more about these things come in and he wasn't able to get it to work either so this one was kind of a bust for us but it was another one where you just get that one piece and with 12 kids it might have been hard to use with that many kids around but we gave it a shot we had some other coding activities on the computer that day I think this one is called the Codepillar Fisher Price Codepillar and this one is geared towards the preschool age which is kind of cool to get the little guys involved in coding and each little segment on the Codepillar has the each little segment has the Codepillar going in different directions so the preschoolers preschoolers got to assemble the Codepillar how they wanted it to go and then we followed it all around the library and they had a blast with that and then the last one that was a hit here was the look I think this one's called yeah the Edison robot and this one you can kind of see he has Lego pieces you can hook like scoops and plows and all sorts of things on to him to make him do different activities and then he also reads barcodes so you would put it over a barcode and then he would do what that barcode told it to that's one that I have that's kind of like a little teeny tank that's one that I have not seen before yeah it was really fun it was also pretty simple to use which helped my library staff and me and but it was still fun that the kids had a great time with it I know coding can be intimidating I'm sure to people who have not done it before but that's what's great about all these little robot things and I think we're talking about the dash and dot ones is teaching the coding while they're having fun little sneaky education there yeah play in the game and here's just some pictures I have this middle picture they're using that dash and dot with an iPad and telling him what to do this picture over here this little guy was pretty excited after the coding days he came in quite a few of our during our activities and we had a great turnout for a lot of those coding activities and these guys over here we do the summer reading prizes and that's just a picture of them with what they got and here's some pictures from the art center activities that were held like I mentioned earlier the art teacher used the summer reading theme to set up the activities that she offered and the grant was able on the art center side of things the grant was able to provide all the materials that she needed so all the canvases, paints paper, materials anything she needed she could get with the grant money that we had and they made at the art center they made pencil drawings sun catchers did acrylic paintings an activity called moon relief they did galaxy paintings string art and they also built rockets at the end of the year and at the end of summer she hosted a reception and end of summer end of summer art reception at the art center and she had it displayed awesome she had all the sun catchers hanging up she had all the pictures on the walls and it was an event open to the community they could come in and go through the art center like they would when other local artists are visiting the art center so the kids art was displayed everywhere and then they got to take everything that they made home at the end of summer once everything was all over here's some more pictures of some of the other activities that we offered we were able to be a little creative with some of the things that we could do just because we had more funding to get extra supplies and we just didn't have to use what we had we could go out and get a few more things we had a photo booth these kiddos are at that right there those were set up at all the activities that we had for them to take pictures and we used some of those pictures to promote on social media the fun that we were having at summer reading to generate that excitement for other people to come join us we made galaxy slime did some alien and solar system crafts we had activities that were just geared towards the preschoolers and I think the most favorite thing we did of the summer minus the coding box was we held a Jedi training camp and these pictures right here and right here those kids that attended the training camp they had to go through various stages that attested their agility patience wisdom teamwork skills all the good things that you need to be a Jedi I guess and at the end they were awarded their own light sabers made out of pool noodles that's awesome I love that if it was the blast especially with the pool noodles because you know they're going to want to hit each other and it's better than most of the twice light sabers had to be like plastic better than the plastic that could do a little damage you said they had a blast with it though yeah yeah they we did some skills testing with that and then this top picture we took them outside and one kid blew bubbles and then they had to practice their skills that they just learned to try to get the bubbles so that was that was just a lot of fun little activity and towards the end of summer we were able to bring another big event to Bassett for the whole community to enjoy that was a free event and we had the Edgerton Explorers Center from Aurora come and bring their portable planetarium I think we had eight to ten sessions happening throughout the day and we had people at all of them and for being such a small town that was such an awesome feeling to get all the sessions with people in them we had people from other towns come from some of the neighboring towns because we advertised all over for it to let people know about this and since our library is so small we weren't able to actually have it in our physical library but the elementary school is just right down the street less than a block away and we used their gymnasium to put the portable planetarium in and that's where we had all the sessions and this we did have people sign up in advance to help keep people spread out throughout the day and keep things running smoothly and we were just blown away by the attendance that we had and it just kind of shows that you bring this kind of stuff to the town and they want to see it we don't get events like this happening all the time so when we're able to bring things like that the community really does come together and show support for those things here's some more pictures of the activities that we had in the bottom two pictures one of them the little preschoolers are taking that coder pillar around the library they were pretty intrigued with that the whole entire time and the older kids in the bottom right are doing some activities with this Sphero spark we had the preschoolers I think are on top too some alien crafts and then our photo booth that like I said was up the whole entire time for kids to use and the final event that we were able to do was an end of summer pool and pizza party and the library does usually do this but we close it off for just kids who met their summer reading goal just to kind of save money on that we can't open it up to everyone but this year we were able to have it for any of the kiddos who attended any programs at the library or any programs at the art center so it was a great way to end summer and all the fun that we had and kind of say thank you to all the support that we had from the parents who brought their kids to all the activities that we did and just have a little fun together before I think school started shortly after this pool party so this kind of wraps up how we use the grant money to provide this out of this world experience for our kids in our community and I'm actually working on applying for this grant again through the Nebraska Community Foundation and my affiliated fund we had such a great experience and had such a great turnout in almost all of these events that we put on during the summer it's definitely worth trying for as many times as we can and this grant is just such such a great opportunity for small towns to offer some of the things that we're not normally able to offer and the great thing is it helps kids get excited about coming into the library and small towns sometimes I think we have to be really creative with ways to get people actually in through the doors and the things like this really help a lot of these kids you know they're okay about reading but you get them in the door you get them excited about an event that's happening and then you show them a cool book that they might be interested in and then that's where it all really starts to take place and it's just something awesome that we can offer our community when we get opportunities like this and I do have yes one more slide talking about the a few closing thoughts that I have looking for and applying to grants like I said I'm definitely no expert at this I have never before I started here I've never applied for grants before but just getting out there and putting yourself out there can help a ton and having this Nebraska Community Foundation or local affiliated funds for grant money they are awesome resources they can help you do a lot of programs that you're wanting to with some of the money that they have set aside for smaller areas yes the Nebraska Community Foundation is a great resource you use use it you apply for the one that specifically for the youth engagement many of our cities our towns in Nebraska have their own community foundation funds that are related to that that you have money for here in Nebraska also there's a another grant the crates Bennett donor advised grant it's a grant that is specifically for libraries public libraries with a population served 3,000 or less so that's specifically to the public libraries that we help promote here so anywhere else in the country if you have these kind of foundations look for them if there's one for your state or we also have a Lincoln one here in the city of Lincoln Community Foundation they just they got they just want to give money away that's what it's for they just want to hear your awesome ideas that you have and they'll give you money for it if the money is out there something else some grants this is something I've kind of been through with applying for some grants recently and some advice someone gave me is some of them have minimum maximum amounts of dollars that they'll give and don't be afraid to go big with your request you know the worst thing they could say is no and they usually give you a little less there was one grant I applied for $10,000 that was the max and they gave me $5,000 instead and they said come back the next year and maybe we can give you another $5,000 so if they know that you want that money and you have plans for plans to do things with that money and don't be afraid to go for it another thing revise, revise, revise I know I'm probably preaching to the choir but the little mistakes and errors can be red flags in the eyes of the grantors and you want to just make sure you have the best shot possible at this free money I know your timeline this grant that I applied for didn't really have a timeline we kind of created ourselves just because we needed it before summer reading but some other ones I've applied for have pretty specific timelines and a little tip that I've done is if I get the grant ahead of time put it into my calendar work on it so many days as a little reminder so you're not saving it for the last minute because that's when you're not able to really express all the ideas and all the things that you could do when you're crunched on time I know some of them just pop up and you have to do what you gotta do but if you're able to spread that out and really give it your all I definitely recommend doing something like that and go to a workshop this there was one located right when I started about 45 minutes from where I live currently and it was a great a great way to give me some confidence in grant writing and that sometimes a lot of people have no idea what they're doing with grant writing they're just putting their words on paper and hoping for the best just reading all the guidelines and all the boxes that you have to check but something like that can give you a little confidence and just some extra ideas on what you can do to make your grant stand out compared to others and don't ever I think it can be intimidating writing a grant I know we get lots of questions here about you know what do they want what can we do and if there's anything that's out there from the organization you're applying for that has information or just general webinars or information about how to do good grant writing it's always a good thing to look at it and a lot of these smaller organizations too like the community foundations local they're willing to work with you too I mean you mentioned revised revised revised as you're doing it but they will sometimes give feedback saying okay we've looked at what you've given us but we'd like you to expand in this area or give us more information about this part so it's not a it's in stone when you do it once and then if you've messed something up you're out of luck yeah exactly the Nebraska Community Foundation is great at that they have awesome staff there that are willing to get sent you can send in your rough drafts and they'll look through it give you some ideas on what they're looking for and you just got to talk to people and not be afraid to ask for help with those kinds of things and then the last thing I wanted to say with some of my closing thoughts is just don't ever stop dreaming on the possibilities as a rural library we can't we can't do a lot of these projects without the grants that we get and the fundraising that we do so if you have an idea you just got to put it out there and just don't give up until you get what you're looking for all that stuff is out there you just have to have that passion and really show others that you can make a difference if you get this money just asking for help people can read lead you in the right direction and just going through all the different obstacles to get what you want to provide something for your community is definitely worth it every single time in the end if you can bring something new to your small town it's just it's something great we can do to keep our small towns buzzing and to keep things exciting and happening especially as a library we just got to do everything we can to get people in through our doors and excited about that we're more than just books we have so many other things to offer here and sometimes grants can really help us show that to our community mm-hmm and there's my contact information like I said I'm no expert but I am willing to help with some of the grants that I've applied for some of the things that I've learned along this process and I'm just very happy to be here today and share some of the things that I've been able to do since I've started here all right well we are happy to have you here Macy definitely thank you so much all right and anybody have any questions for Macy about anything type into the questions section of your go-to webinar interface I'm monitoring that here for you and we can pass them on to her anything about the grant process the grants how she found it and all that or even the the activities and things you did this for the summer reading can even talk about that too so type in your questions we do have one person who did said that when we were talking about the look in your communities for community foundations in Texas see if you want to be able there so if anybody does know of any in Texas that do this kind of thing let us know and we'll pass it on as I said this I thought this is yeah great doing the the grant this is this is the kind of thing it's kind of like the lottery your year what is it your if you're not in it you can't win it you think all you got to do is apply there are so many grants out there and you know this one is specifically focused on you know youth engagement but sometimes thinking outside the box to look for things are just about public spaces or community things that's what public libraries fall into very often and sometimes you'll find yourself listed down in this long list of eligible entities and here's 10 different ones and the seventh one is library oh that is us let's see what we can do with that grant the library the library and then just being rule in general help you apply for a lot of things yeah all right so we do have a few questions coming in here let's see here all right so someone wants to know how many kids did your summer reading program serve do you know you have a count on that from this last year I think we have like 28 signed up for summer reading and then we had like 12 to 14 kids signed up for each event we did have to cap it and we had people we had a sign-up list ahead of time just because it's only me and my staff member so there's only two of us to work with 12 to 14 kids and also run the library right because so you had the library still open even when you were yeah running the programs there was no we'll shut down the library for these events yeah we keep it open and people just kind of know that summer reading are happening and those calendars helped so they could see the times we had things going on sure so they could plan if I don't want to be at the live I don't want to be at the library at that time and I don't want to avoid the chaos for those hours so I'll come back later absolutely all right so now this may be compared to what you said how many kids you had in there and this may be related to how many people you have in the community is it difficult for kids to get to your library is the question no it's we especially during the school year where we're located right here on the street and the elementary school is just right down couple hundred yards from us and yeah really easy and we're we're right in the middle of town we're not close to the highway or anything that runs through town so we're in a pretty good location did you have any adult summer reading program or activities we didn't have actual activities we just had some summer reading challenges some of the donations we got were from the grocery store and they gave gift certificates so we were able to give I think two or three twenty five dollar gift certificates away to for our adult reading challenges for the grocery store yeah that doesn't be something the adult would be interested in yeah for groceries not bad all right and now we have some questions about those maker space and a crate kit so let's see here the okay the landmark that ti a lamp tei landmark they want to is that a company that sells the kits or rents them how does that process work the tei landmark is the name of the company that does I think they're called maker space and a crate they usually have one themed for the summer reading program so they specifically every year come out with something that'll be related yes they have something coming for our one coming up this year yeah we're getting that one they have a that's a puppet it's like you get puppet stage and they have story book activities and they have all the activities included for like 10 to 12 kids and you can purchase more if you have more coming signed up but you can do it I think they have it as like a yearly thing or we just do it for three months in the summer and that we get it from like made a September depending on when we get it so it's a rental yes yep these are a rental okay and they have it listed on what items you get to keep and what items they need back because sometimes they give you some free little things in those boxes as well sure there's going to be certain things that aren't going to be able to be reusable yeah the next person who gets it the next library that gets it sure sure okay and someone else wants to know about the makerspace and the kids now you just said they've got these ones that are specifically focused or geared towards the summer reading program do they have lots of other options someone is looking for ones for patrons with sensory issues um I'm not sure I know their website has they're changing of what they offer they're constantly changing so if you could just go to the website and see what they have or talk to a representative they see what's up I think they also have some like stem some of the stem boxes and things you can add sure all right so the company is TEI like an acronym landmark so yeah go and check out their website and see what there is there oh I guess someone did look at it and she in the info said it said something about leasing is that different than the renting do you know what your your specific I think you can do it for the full year but I've talked to her and I said we don't want anything to do with the leasing I think they so called the leasing agreement but we just get it for that one section and then we don't have anything to do with it we cancel just that one sure a couple of months yeah we're doing this just get it for that leasing might be more of like an ongoing annual thing that you're getting new things regularly maybe we don't know I'm just guessing yeah I think it's like that you can get them like three boxes three different boxes throughout the whole year if you're on that lease agreement or you can just get it or you just want to pay a one time fee and you get it for your months and that's all you have before it looks like someone did share the website here it's actually TEI landmark audio dot com is the company but I'm sure if you also just google it you'll find it as well all right yeah but definitely reach out to them they did good for rock county all right any other last minute desperate questions you want to ask of Macy before we move on there is her contact information there as she said she's definitely willing to help you out I'm new director newish you said the year right yep out of here now I don't know when you're considered no longer new but there's always new things you're learning yeah always we just got some comments for you saying good job and I love hearing from such a small library we are also very small and had a good summer reading last year and it's true it doesn't matter what size your your community your library is if you've got people in your community I mean do a program and you'll have what you said 20 something kids and then you'll have you know then you know some of your bigger libraries end up with 100 kids just how many are your community the Bassett where Macy's from it's their population is uh 575 so yeah so let's know how long were you able to keep the kit I think you were trying to remember yeah we got it towards the end towards the end of May right beginning of June is when we started and then the middle of September is when we sent it back so I think it's three or four months can't remember and so is that a timing that you can designate yourself yeah tell that I tell this time okay great so you can I tell her when I want it okay great all right sounds good all right so we love your ideas thank you for sharing thank you all right I am going to bring back presenter control to my screen here for the moment all right all right so thank you very much Macy thank you