Connecting Young People to Learning and Creativity
What can happen when education and culture and arts come together?
Helping Charleston’s young people learn, explore, and discover new opportunities is something that reaches across a community. It also reaches across Charleston Thrives.
The Education Working Group is focused on creating meaningful opportunities for young people to learn and thrive, while the Culture & Arts Working Group helps connect people to experiences that encourage creativity, expression, and participation.
This September, those priorities come together at the Tallahatchie County Public Library.
September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month, and students from Charleston Elementary School, Charleston Middle School, Eva Covington Head Start, and West Tallahatchie Head Start will visit the library throughout the month. Activities will include library tours, library card sign-ups for eligible students, story time readings, arts and crafts, and scavenger hunts.
Even better, the visits are expected to repeat each month, except around holidays, giving students ongoing opportunities to make the library part of how they learn, explore, and create.
You can be part of the progress. A library card gives children and adults ongoing access to books and other learning resources long after a single visit ends. Tallahatchie County residents ages 6 and older can get a library card at no cost. Visit the library with a photo ID and proof of residence to apply. Parents, grandparents, caregivers, educators, and community members can also encourage eligible young people to sign up and use their cards.
The Tallahatchie County Public Library is located at 102 E. Walnut St. in Charleston. Hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., and Friday, 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.
Here’s when students will visit in September:
» Sept. 8: Charleston Elementary, pre-K and kindergarten
» Sept. 9 and 16: Eva Covington Head Start
» Sept. 10: West Tallahatchie Head Start
» Sept. 14: Charleston Middle School, grades 5 and 6
» Sept. 15: Charleston Elementary, grades 1 and 2
» Sept. 22: Charleston Elementary, grades 3 and 4
Library Community Outreach Director Audra Brown is organizing the student visits. Together, the activities create a progress point shared by the Culture & Arts and Education Working Groups: connecting young people with more ways to learn, imagine, participate, and grow.
That is what Making Progress Together looks like: different parts of the community contributing to opportunities that help Charleston’s young people thrive.
If you see progress happening across Charleston, we hope you will share it with me and with each other.
Send your email to me at cheryl@sonedna.com.
Charleston Thrives is a community-led effort supported by SonEdna Foundation that brings people together to recognize progress already happening across Charleston and carry it forward together. Through shared experiences, conversations and participation, Charleston Thrives helps people see their place in the future of the community and how they can help shape it. Focus areas include Government & Civic Engagement, Education, Economic Opportunity, Health & Well-Being, and Culture & Arts. Follow how Charleston Thrives is Making Progress Together: Facebook.com/sonednafoundation | Instagram.com/sonednafoundation | and at Linkedin.com/company/sonedna-foundation.
