The Community Libraries of Providence offer a slew of programming every week for kids and adults at their nine locations around the city – from book clubs, to concerts, to classes on things like cooking and coding. We highlight a few of these events in our monthly community libraries segment.
For June, morning host Luis Hernandez spoke with Cheryl Space, Library Director of the Community Libraries of Providence, and Kate Schapira, author of “Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth: How to Live with Care and Purpose in an Endangered World.” Schapira leads a community action conversation club for teens at Wanskuck Library.
Summer reading programs
Cheryl Space: June is the month when we kick off the summer reading season at the Community Libraries. This year, I’m particularly excited. We have a new partnership with the Rhode Island Football Club. Our libraries, along with the Providence Children’s Museum, are the presenting partners of the free TerRIFC Kids Club for kids up to age 12. So Chip, their harbor seal mascot, will be visiting all of our libraries this summer, and our Readmobile will be in their fan zone on June 21 for Schools Out, July 19 for Beat Hartford and September 6 for Kids Day. The kids who complete the Summer Reading Challenge will win free tickets to the Kids Day game and have a special experience at the game.
We also have all kinds of celebrations happening in our libraries. We’ll have Circus Dynamics with balloons and juggling, adorable farm animals, and a pirate adventure, to name some of the many exciting programs that will be happening this summer.
Cooking and nutrition programs for kids
Space: Elementary age aspiring chefs can learn kitchen skills while making delicious recipes at the Chef’s Academy, which will be on June 4 at the Mount Pleasant Library. Then we’re kicking off a six-part series called A Taste of African Heritage on June 18 at the Knight Memorial Library. Participants will explore nutrition, and best of all, they’ll get to sample and learn simple cooking techniques for healthy living based on delicious African heritage food traditions.
Enjoy a summer concert
Space: What’s best about summer is that some of our concerts happen outdoors. On June 12, you can check out Hungrytown on the Rochambeau Library front porch. And on June 24, the Undaunted Professor Harp and his four piece blues band will perform at the Mount Pleasant Library.
Join a ‘no need to read’ teen book club at Wanskuck Library, led by Kate Schapira, author of ‘Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth’
Kate Schapira: We get together in the library; usually, there’s food. If anyone who comes, a teen or young grown-up, wants something in their life or the life of their city to be different, they can come to this club to learn how to speak up and out about what matters to them, and to also hear from one another about the things that are important.
So somebody might be dealing with threats to their family because of their immigration status. Somebody else might be worried about the asthma that their sibling has or that they have because they live close to one of the polluting industries down in the port. What do you do about that?
You might feel like you are small, but if you learn what some of the people around you are dealing with, maybe then there are two people who care about that instead of one, or maybe there are four people who care about that instead of two.
It’s going to be Thursdays throughout the month of June for about an hour, starting at 2:30 and going to 3:30 p.m. All you have to do is show up. Come with something that you are concerned about in your life or in your city, and that you’re looking for a way to act on, or have just have questions about.
You can learn more about what’s going on at the Providence Community Libraries at clpvd.org.
