Year End Gratitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. ~ Melodie Beattie

I love this quote. Maybe I don't even need to say any more...but I will!


I can't pass up the opportunity to thank those who have taught us, entertained us and supported us:

Gary Leslie, Sam Shiffman, Alex Prister and our teen film makers for their hard work and dedication to bringing their stories to the screen and the web. We had a successful festival in '09 and are excited about what new skills we can show off at the 2010 festival.

Our Green Teens who did super job at the Earth Day festival. We even made it to Channel 12 news! We made necklaces and wallets out of recycled materials. Big hit with the kids who attended he fair.

Sustainable Highland Park for making the Earth Day festival a reality. There was a a great turnout and we are already thinking of something fun and creative for Earth Day 2010. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Edible Gardens Organization for helping our Green Teens get started on our first garden. We made a raised bed out of recycled materials, filled it with organic soil and used the square foot method of gardening to grow tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, herbs and some flowers. It was beautiful - and useful. We brought some produce to the HP food pantry and made gazpacho to give out as well. It was a delicious and humbling experience. We will do more of this next year. Keep your eye out for more info.

Our Expresso writers produced another wonderful issue of our teen magazine. We were able to publish some beautiful poetry and writing from our local teens. Hoping to have more for 2010's spring/summer issue. I already have some great submissions so I know it will be worth waiting for!

Our Book Buddies! Our teens did an outstanding job this summer reading and doing crafts with their little buddies. Miss Fran and I were so proud of all of them.
We got a lot of positive feedback from the kids and parents. You are all wonderful to spend you spare time helping kids improve their reading skills, gain confidence and just to enjoy reading! Did I mention we were so proud of you?!

We have a lot of people to thank for our summer programs:

Bill Crosbie - video gaming - huge hit with the kids and very informative.
Allison Wiesel - paper making - messy and creative, right up our alley.
Alex Prister - Film maker extraordinaire shared his film making tips and showed us the film he is working on. We are excited to be his groupies!
Jill Caporlingua - artist and teacher who inspired us to make our beautiful word wall hanging in our YA room.
Jack Yang - chess master and teacher. The kids love playing with and against him. He has made us better players!

Dr Robert Knoll - helped our HS students prepare their college essays. He is a gem and an asset to the community. He also came out and spoke to our film club. We hope to have him back often!

Teachers Dara Botvinick, Sara Dea and Colin Hogan for making the HP library a destination for their 6th grade classes. I have enjoyed helping them with their book selections, research projects and introducing them to the artists on display in the meeting room. In turn they have been encouraging students to share their writing for our Expresso issue. We are grateful for teachers like them who help kids make the connection to their public library. It is win-win.

Tian Weishaus, Iren Chan Marx and Anne Barron of Sustainable Highland Park for the workshop they did on "Stuff". They showed us the movie, The Story of Stuff and led a lively and eye-opening discussion. We hope to have more workshops like this and get more teens involved with local sustainability projects. Join us.

Roberta Kressel and Judy Wagner for the composting workshop. They are local Master Gardeners who shared their expertise and got us excited to start our own compost heap at the library. I did not quite manage to pull it off, but I have one at home I'll share!

Most importantly we must thank our Friends of the Library who paid any and all expenses including refreshments, t-shirts, art supplies etc. We could do nothing without them.

So, thank you Friends! If you'd like to be a Friend of the HP library visit the library homepage for a link to the membership form.
You can never have enough Friends.

And of course, all the teens who participated in our programs. You are the life behind all of it.
You are interested and interesting. You are funny and fun to be around. You are kind to one another and to the staff and myself. You make my job a pleasure.
I am grateful for all of you.

Now time to plan 2010.
I can't wait to see what we will be grateful for in the new year.

Best wishes,

Michelle