Monday, December 30, 2013

The Pop Up Carnegie Library in Allentown: Maria

Since the Spring of 2013 we have had an ongoing partnership with the Carnegie Pop up Library in the Allentown neighborhood. It has been such a great resource to have available to our students. Opportunities from walking field trips to the pop up during our after school and summer programs to special guests and hands on opportunities, it has been extremely beneficial to our students. The staff are always striving to educate and provide positive experiences for everyone in the Allentown area. I asked Maria if she could share a little bit about their time in Allentown.


This October, the Pop-Up location of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, celebrated our one year anniversary of providing library service and programming on the Hilltop at 1206 Arlington Avenue. It has been an amazing year in which the staff of the Pop-Up (Christian, Dan, Lauren, Linda, Maria and Molly) has gotten to know the community of Allentown and vice versa. We have made some really great connections with a variety of people and organizations in the neighborhood. For the 35 hours we are open every week, the staff of the Pop-up has provided job searching assistance, homework help, a variety of programming, as well as a small collection of circulating items which gets an increased amount of use every week we are open.  Our visitors run the gamut of ages and interests, reflecting the Allentown neighborhood itself.



Early on in our Allentown stay, we were fortunate to start partnering with The Brashear Association for a variety of after school and summertime programming. We have loved this partnership and have been so excited to see it grow from its inception, when we had Officer Luffey from our neighboring police station come in to talk to the kids about responsible animal ownership, to the most recent visit of nutrition educator, Ms. Ann, who played games with the kids while teaching them about healthy eating habits. And in between we have had a variety of guests and programs and fantastic experiences.


We have seen some of our original friends leave the neighborhood, and we have made many new friends, as more and more people discover us at the corner of Arlington and Warrington avenues.  We are extremely glad to have the opportunity to continue a programming partnership with all of our partners here in Allentown and especially continuing the work we do with The Brashear Association. We can’t wait to see what 2014 brings for all of us on the Hilltop!

-Maria

No comments:

Post a Comment

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...