This past Tuesday evening 80 teens participated in our Library Skate Night at Skate City! Skate City sponsored the teen summer reading program by giving us a private party with free tickets to 4 hours of skating with skate rentals included! Skate City even provided a bus to pick up 17 teens from the Fountain Library, our southern most branch. The Skate City staff were very friendly and accommodating and went out of their way to make sure that library staff and teens had a great time. We did the Chicken Dance and the Hokey Pokey and played limbo and skated and skated and skated. Teens loved seeing library staff out on the rink and one bold teen even challenged us, "is that as fast as you can go?" Try as I might, I so couldn't catch him! OK, I almost caught up to him but only by skating on the far inside and cheating but as soon as he saw me skate up next to him, he took off like he was Apolo Ohno. This event was the best opportunity we've had in a long while to interact with teens and show a little of our fun sides, to get out of the library and show our community teens that we're more than just librarians, more than just books and homework help and research goddesses.

Even better, Skate City is ready to partner with us again. We're already planning our Halloween Bash at Skate City with 150 free tickets! So, a huge THANK YOU to Amanda and all of the Skate City staff who are so willing to work with the library and make these events so successful!