Nearly 2,000 Participants for South Central Regional Library's Summer Program

Cathy Ching, Director of South Central Regional Library (SCRL), said this year's summer reading program was a huge success.

Each year the SCRL participates in the National TD Summer Reading Club. People of all ages are encouraged to read through the summer and keep a log of the number of minutes they have spent reading.

This year, the total number of participants was 1,747. Director Cathy Ching says this is a record high for library's four branches. On the last day of the program 1,528 books were checked out, and 2,315 were checked back in.

"The kids still took books out. Just because they were done the program, they didn't want to be done reading, so that's an exciting thing," said Ching.

She added the carts were so full of books on the last day that staff could hardly push them.

Ching believes this year's high numbers are due to an additional 'Teen and Adult' category, which was requested in a survey. The library also recruited new participants and saw many returning members from previous year. Staff drove out to more schools in the area to promote the event.  

"Our branch librarians really went all out and talked to schools... I think the connection was made for the children who would go home and be excited," she said.

Another aspect to the program are the prizes. Once participants have read for one hour, they are entered in to win a book prize or a grand prize. 'Fun bucks' can also be collected to get smaller prizes.

Grand prizes were given out during the wind-up, which included a presentation by the Flatlands Theatre Company. They wrote a script just for the reading program based on Canada's history called 'Unpacking Across Canada Through History and Time'.

Ching said the program will continue to run in the future, and that an online portion might be added as well. A library card is not needed in order to join.

Registration began June 27 and the final day to submit reading logs was August 14.