UPK's 10th Anniversary - A Community Event

UPK Manager Theresa Rooney recovered from University Park Branch's 10^th Anniversary Celebration and reports on this successful event, October 4., "We wanted to celebrate not only our 10 years of community service but invite the organizations – some of which are our community partners -- that serve many of our Arlington customers, so we developed the idea of a Community Open House for our 10^th anniversary program. It proved to be useful to the community, as well the community organizations themselves, gathering as many of the organizations as possible in the same room and encouraging them to network, learn about what other organizations were doing and developing connections among themselves while also doing outreach with the public. Ten organizations staffed outreach tables: Arlington Community Services, Arlington Family Resource Center, CareerSource, Arlington Senior Center, Friends of the JPL, Greater Arlington/Beaches CPAC, Learn to Read, Old Arlington, Inc., Tree Hill Nature Center and U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services. Katie Devanny opened the CAL classroom and E-Specialists Randy Mapanoo and Luis Terron manned a table and conducted demonstration classes in the computer classroom.
 
Council President Clay Yarborough, Councilmen Bill Bishop and John Crescimbeni and BOLT member Dr. Brenda Simmons-Hutchins spoke to over 300 attendees at the short noon program, moderated by Director Barbara Gubbin, and 222 participated in door prize drawings. Forty-five children participated in the craft project, a refrigerator magnet covered in tin foil and decorated, which was facilitated by Children’s Librarian Mary Calcagni.

We discovered during our event planning that tin is a pliable material and the traditional symbol for a 10^th anniversary, and tin symbolizes the ability to weather life’s ups and downs and to bend but not be broken -- skills at which JPL staff excel.

 

The fun part of getting ready.

 

Visitors consumed 20 dozen donuts from The Donut Shoppe and gallons of coffee and apple cider. Library Associate Mina Figuerrez, assisted by PT Library Clerk Zavonna Robinson and volunteers Angel de la Torre, Stephen Gonzalez and Josh Schuz, did an awesome job of decorating the Community Room and the entire lobby. Library Clerk Roz Smalls was our Mistress of Ceremonies/Announcer and kept the event moving smoothly and gave away all of the door prizes with style. Leona Cain, David Humphries, Midge Roton, Sandra Smith and Tony Williams were great team players who helped the day go smoothly.  Gretchen Mitchell and Lynn Jacobson were a great help during the planning stages, getting prizes donated from our contractors and suppliers, including a pair of Jaguar tickets from TC Delivers and a beautiful fall-themed gift basket from Midwest Tapes.  Margaret Fishback provided beautiful banners, posters, flyers and special coloring pages for the kids. Marsha Blasco and Kathy Lussier were great partners during the planning stages and beyond. Bob Silkett and Julie McNeil were very supportive in helping us to keep the branch running during the day. The whole event, from the earliest planning stages to event cleanup, personified JPL teamwork at its finest and would not have been so successful without the contributions of everyone.               THANKS EVERYONE!

No library celebration is complete without a book and Theresa's granddaughter, Rivers, two years old and Emily Matchett's daughter, took a book break.

You can view some of the photographs taken by Theresa’s daughter, Emily Matchett, at: 

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3B-CPBprCBFSFZpUlhPcmpMUUk&usp=sharing