Summer Reading Club Ends with Fun Run

SEA ISLE CITY – Aug. 17, close to 200 people gathered at the Sea Isle City Library for the Grand Finale event of the Cape May County Library’s Kids’ Summer Reading Club. The Family Fun Run was a fitting end to this summer’s program, themed “On Your Mark, Get Set…Read!”.
Children, teens, parents, grandparents, and caregivers participated in a fun run around the library, completing distances of ¼ to a full mile. Afterwards there were carnival games, crafts, sack races, face painting, ice cream, & fun for everyone!
The Grand Prize winners of the Kids’ Summer Reading Club were also announced. The lucky winners, C.J. Smutnick and Emily VanArtsdalen, each won a $100 gift certificate to Kona Surf Company in Wildwood. Community Sponsors were a welcome addition to the library’s Sumer Reading Clubs for kids, teens, and adults. The library received donations from Green Street Market, Ocean View Animal Hospital, Harpoon Henry’s, Silver Bullet Tours, Cape May County Park & Zoo, Morey’s Piers, and Wawa. Three lucky winners in the kids’ Summer Reading Club were excited to receive prizes donated by a few of our sponsors: Wawa, Cape May County Park & Zoo, and Silver Bullet Tours.
Overall, the event was a great success, but it was only one small part of the Kids’ Summer Reading Club, which started June 20. Over the course of eight weeks, children were encouraged to read, or be read to, and meet a goal set by themselves at the beginning of the summer. Goals ranged from reading five books to reading 100! If a child reached his or her goal they received a special medal for their successful endeavor. 27 kids ended up logging 100 or more books. One stand-out participant, Abigail Dickinson, logged the most books of the summer, finishing with a total of 272!
Weekly programs drew local families and visitors, alike, to each of the eight branches of the Cape May County Library. Programs presented by Sciencetellers, Steve Serwatka of New Jersey Nature, The Franklin Institute, the Rutgers Extension Cooperative, the Hampstead Stage Company, and more, entertained kids and parents and engaged them in learning new things about science, animals, the human body, healthy eating, and theater, to name a few. Many parents commented that participating in the Summer Reading Club made their child feel that they belonged to a community of readers and that the programs were something they looked forward to every week.
This summer a total of 13,797 books were read by the 546 kids who participated in the club. Almost half of those participating reached their goal and were awarded their medal at the end of the program. Summer Reading Club might be over for this year, but soon the Head Children’s Librarian, Kellie Large, will start planning for next summer, themed “Build a Better World.”  “It is always a lot of fun planning for the summer,” she stated. “It’s great to see all the families come, year after year, to see what the library has going on next. It’s encouraging when new families find out about the Summer Reading Club and let us know they’ll be back for the next one. Creating a community where all are welcome and literacy is promoted is one of our highest endeavors. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the success of our Summer Reading Club.”