Thank you to this amazing crew of KeyBank volunteers for helping make a difference in our library.

We receive so many book donations throughout the year, it can get a little overwhelming. They spent a full afternoon helping us sort and organize books for our Fall Book Giveaway.

This is not the first year, KeyBank has supported our mission, in the past they have helped us with many initiatives, some include helping clean up our garden, organizing our school supplies for giveaways, and leading educational demonstrations for our Healthy Future participants.

We are grateful for all your help over the years.

We held our annual Fall Book Giveaway in person at our office on October 11 & 12th. This year's format was by appointment only and it was a success. We had about 125 children and their parents attend.

Each appointment accommodated 10 people to enter and choose as many used books as they wanted, plus each child received 2 new books. Attendees also were able to look through gently used clothes and toys, as well as take home a prepackaged arts and crafts project (fun Halloween luminaries).

Last year, our spring book giveaway was done by survey and we chose the books for the families, then they came to pick them up. This format was an improvement, but we are hoping by next spring we can return to our original format of opening our doors and allowing everyone to come in to get books.

Thank you to everyone who signed up and supported this fun and much needed event.

Our Sheridan Prep Book Club kids have been having a blast working with our volunteers this year. We are working with two groups – kindergarteners during the school day and kids in grades 3-5 in the after school program.

Our kindergarteners have been working hard on their alphabet using play dough, dry erase boards and fun crafts. Each week, staff and volunteer gather to introduce fun learning concepts that are engaging for both group of kids, and they have loved it. The week of Halloween, we had a carnival of learning games and crafts for each group to participate in. They did pumpkin arts and crafts, jack-o-lantern disk game, witch hat toss and more – but they had to read all of the directions before playing each game. Our after school group of 3-5 kids created a sandwich shop in honor of National Sandwich Day that taught them how to set up a business, the roles and responsibilities, communication and the basics of money management.

Many thanks to our volunteers who show up to help us every week. We look forward to the coming weeks and how we can continue to effectively engage them with fun learning activities.

We were happy to bring back our adult tennis program at several courts around the area.

The 5-week program which began in September was in full swing throughout the week at various courts in the region. We offered two adult-only sessions and an adult + child session for adults and kids to learn alongside each other on Saturday mornings.

The sessions ended on October 5th, and we have already had inquiries as to when the next sessions will begin. We are hopeful we can do it again in the spring, and if we are lucky, we will be able to offer adult classes again during our summer programming. Due to space limitations, we had to pull the adult classes to make way for more children the last two summers.

Thank you to everyone who came out and participated!