Resources:
Lee Van Roth's Feature Article: Ypsi library offers social services, Summer Challenge, youth performance opportunity this summer
Ypsilanti District Library (YDL)
YDL Contact Info for Social Work and Mutual Aid Programs
Transcription:
Lee Van Roth: You're listening to 89.1 WEMU. I'm Lee Van Roth, formerly known as Rylee Barnsdale, and this is On the Ground Ypsi. While my name is different, I am still committed to bringing you the stories from our community. And summer is in full swing! For many in Ypsi, that means more than just sunshine and ice cream. It means free books, teen music showcases, hot meals, and help with everything from housing to health care, all courtesy of the Ypsilanti District Library. With a wide range of programming designed to connect, uplift, and empower folks of all ages, YDL continues to prove that a library is so much more than just a place to check out a book. Today, I'm joined by Sam Killian, Community Relations Coordinator at YDL, to talk about the library's Summer Challenge, its expanding mutual aid services, and why making the library a true community hub has never been more important. Sam, welcome! Thanks so much for being here!
Sam Killian: Thank you! I appreciate it!
Lee Van Roth: Now, there is a lot of stuff going on at the library this summer. It seems like there is at least one event, if not multiple, going on every day at each of YDL's branches. How would you describe the sort of overall impact that library programming has had on the community that you're serving?
Sam Killian: Sure. I mean, like you said, we definitely have typically at least one program every day. And we do have a good mix of programs too, because it's really important for us to try and reach a wide range of demographics. We want to make sure that seniors have things to do, teens have things to do, lots of things for families, obviously, programming for adults to kind of meet up in a book club or playing a game. It's just kind of a thing that we're happy about, being a space where people can come and hang out without having to spend money on something.
Lee Van Roth: And one of the programs that has returned this year is the Summer Challenge. This is its eighth year. It engages upwards of thousands of participants each year, and not only aims to get folks reading a little bit more now that they might have a little more time in the summer, folks of all ages, but also to come out to library events and check out things in the Ypsi community. It goes a lot further than just reading, and I'm curious about why it's so important for YDL and YDL staff to offer programs like that.
Sam Killian: Well, first of all, I wouldn't want to downplay the importance of the literacy component of that.
Lee Van Roth: For sure!
Sam Killian: Because a lot of the reason that we started the Summer Challenge in the first place was to kind of address that summer gap that comes up when the school year is not in session. And we're finding--lots of staff that show--people kind of take a little bit of a dive during the summer, and we wanted to make sure we're helping maintain those skills and everything that people are working on throughout the year. But obviously, summer is the time where you don't want to think about just kind of learning and reading. And so, we're trying to make it fun while still kind of serving that overall purpose. But like you said, obviously, it's kind of expanded. And lots of people are reading books in the challenge, but lots of people are also attending library events to get points. They're going out in the community visiting the pool or riding the bus or doing all kinds of things that can kind of get them out and about just generally in the community. And we kind of like that aspect that the library is a community connection place. And so, we kind loved the opportunity to pull in kind of other things that are going on. And if we're a space where people kind of learn information about what's going on in the community, we would like to give them the opportunity to kind of go out and check things out. We've got the Fairy Door Scavenger Hunt that people can go on where people who have sponsored our great prizes in the Summer Challenge can display a little decorative fairy door, and people can't go out find those, making a little game out of it. And so, it's just the idea of people being able to do something other than stay inside the house and look at the screen, I guess.
Lee Van Roth: Another one of the returning programs this summer is Noise Permit, and this is a teen-focused program where participants are able to write and perform music and other sort of creative endeavors culminating in this large celebratory concert for all the participants to showcase everything that they've been working on. But I'm curious about how the rest of the community kind of gets roped into that.
Sam Killian: Yeah. It's kind of been just a really fun event for us. I mean, this is, I believe, the second year that we've been back since we had a few years during the COVID kind of shutdowns and everything where we weren't holding it. And so, I believe this is the second year back, and kind of the numbers, we're trying to get him back up to where they were before.
Lee Van Roth: Sure.
Sam Killian: They haven't quite reach that. But when it's going, we're having hundreds of people at the library plaza, and they're just kind of just very joyful. And I think it's an opportunity. It's right in the heart of downtown. I think people just like the chance to come and support these teens that are playing music or reading poetry or doing all kinds of stuff that they're working really hard on. And I think the opportunity for the teens to get that experience and to see obviously lots of friends and family but just like community coming out and being invested in that and enjoying it. I mean, it's quite an experience, I think, to just be able to...you look at the pictures we've had from the past years, and it's just smiling faces, big crowds, it's just a joyful atmosphere. I think one of the things that I think is pretty fun this year at the concert, one of the tables that we're going to have out there, or we're hoping to have, is teen entrepreneurs, who are interested in kind of like showcasing like things that they've developed, are going to have a chance to kind of come out and show things that they've designed or made or created. And so, even going past the artistic side of it, it's kind of allowing teens, in a lot of different ways, to kind of showcase what they're working on and giving them kind of concrete ways to put their stuff out into the world, for lack of better way to put it.
Lee Van Roth: This is WEMU's On the Ground Ypsi. I'm talking with Sam Killian, the Community Relations Coordinator for the Ypsilanti District Library. So, Sam, one of the new things to the library's really extensive lineup this year, in the summer in particular, is the Library Care Coordination Program. This is recently developed by the newly-hired library social worker, Kat Layton. It aims to connect patrons with more social services and resources and to help fill in the gaps for library staff who, as well-rounded and as talented as they are, are not social workers themselves. How do these programs that have this very specific goal in mind at helping some of our more vulnerable neighbors in the community, how do those kind of fold into the rest of the library programming?
Sam Killian: Yeah, I mean, I think you kind of hit on something in the first kind of point that you brought out. It's really just expanding and improving the way we're able to kind of connect people with those resources, because, as you mentioned, librarians are obviously wonderful and they're really great at helping people find the things that they need. But the social work position, and Kat especially who's just been wonderful, it's a very specific way of connecting people with resources that might require a specific kind of touch. And it's been great to kind of have just that kind of specially trained approach to all of this. But what I would say, first of all, I think it's been really important, especially just with the downtown branch in particular, just having her in a space that is accessible to folks right in the downtown area and somebody who is specifically there for this purpose. So, folks who maybe aren't comfortable coming up to a librarian or don't know that they should come up to library to ask about getting help applying for some sort of ID or applying for food stamps or getting help accessing shelter resources or housing resources or food resources, any of that stuff, for folks who might not necessarily know or be comfortable going to a librarian at a desk about it now see that we have a specific person who we're kind of thing this is what they're here for.
Lee Van Roth: Well, Sam, I want to say thank you so much for joining us here today and sharing about how YDL's programs are really making a difference here in our community this summer, and not even just this summer. The library always has things going on year-round. And hopefully, maybe some of these summer programs will bring some more folks in the fall and the winter and so on and so forth.
Sam Killian: Yeah, absolutely! We love seeing as many people as we can!
Lee Van Roth: For more information on today's topic and links to the full article, visit our website at WEMU.org. On the Ground Ypsi is brought to you in partnership with Concentrate Media. I'm Lee Van Roth, formerly known as Rylee Barnsdale, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU-FM Ypsilanti. Celebrating 60 years of broadcasting at Eastern Michigan University!
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