Our Awesome Time Volunteering at a Library

Before I continue to explain Parker's path towards becoming a reader, I want to take a break and tell you about a great opportunity that came our way last week. I should start out with a bit of a disclaimer. I am, technically, a stay-at-home mom in that I am home with my children from the time they wake up until the time they go to sleep. What I haven't mentioned until now is that I work from 4am to 8am at Target getting all that lovely merchandise off the truck and on to the shelves for you to buy. I love Target. I met my husband at Target. That said, Target does not know about this blog and they are not paying me to talk about what the boys and I did last Tuesday. Now, on with the story.

Last Tuesday, P-man, Wes-Wes, and I went to the St. Paul Music Academy for a volunteer event set up by the Target store I work for. The St. Paul Music Academy (http://spmusicacademy.spps.org/) is an elementary school in the St. Paul School District that won a complete library makeover from Target. The boys and I, along with several of my co-workers, were there to help box up all the books in their library so that they can empty the space and give it a complete over-haul this summer. They are getting all new carpet, paint, shelving, and lots of fun new technology. I am so happy and excited for this school, even though I had never been in it prior to our volunteer day.

P-Man boxing up the 800's

P-man did a wonderful job helping me box up books. Not only did we box them up, but to help save the librarian's sanity, we made sure to keep everything in order and labeled all the boxes. It was a perfect opportunity to introduce Parker to the Dewey Decimal system, even if he didn't really understand what it was. Luckily for me, a co-worker's daughter, who quickly tired of boxing books, was more than willing to play with Wes-Wes while we worked.

It was wonderful to have P-man be involved in bringing a better library to a group of deserving kids. We got to talk about school libraries and how this fall he will have a library at his kindergarten center. Up until now, he has only ever experienced community libraries, so it was cool for him to see a library completely devoted to kids.

I am not sure if other Target stores are going to be assisting with the rest of the makeover, but I do hope the crew from my store gets to go back and help later in the process as well. I know the school library staff is beyond excited, and it sounds like the students got to help choose what their new library will include. I hope we get to see the great reveal at the end of the summer. I hope Target continues this great program as well.