The library is your best resource for raising a reader and a lifelong learner. Our first Community Impact Goal is “Every child will be ready for kindergarten.” And we mean every child. For children ages 0-18, the library’s youth services leaders, librarians and staff are their experienced educators, armed with research and an ironclad commitment to advocate for children to improve their futures. Learn some of the ways we’re helping transform the lives of children in Shawnee County.
In Shawnee County, only 31% of children have a formal preschool experience. We bring the preschool to families right in their neighborhoods on the Learn & Play Bus, where kids can learn vital literacy skills for free and in a super fun environment. The library’s early childhood learning coordinator makes sure all the little ones are developing through playing, talking, reading, singing and writing so that they’re prepared to enter school.
With the Imagination Library, every child under the age of five will be mailed an age-appropriate book each month. That will give kids a home library of up to 60 books to study, read and share with parents. Studies show that participation in the program positively and significantly improves early childhood literacy.
For the program to be sustainable over five years, the library, in partnership with the United Way of Topeka, need to raise $1 Million. Donate today to get the Imagination Library started in our community. $25 covers the cost for a child for one year.
Our storytellers share stories with more than 3,700 children ages 3-5 each month at 75 daycare centers and preschools throughout the county. At storytime, kids have so much fun they hardly realize they are learning vocabulary skills, narrative skills, letters and shapes and practicing the concentration skills they’ll need to be ready for kindergarten.
The Family Place Library initiative focuses on the development of children birth to 5 years old by providing interactive games and activity stations, Parent/Child Workshops and storytimes that grow a love of reading.
When the AdventureMobile rolls up to a Shawnee County school, students come out with their assigned classroom to return their books and check out 2 items. Teachers can also request library materials to be brought out to supplement their lesson plans. In the summertime, the AdventureMobile features a new critter each week, and kids can join the Critter Club to win prizes.
Each year, as kindergartners graduate in Shawnee County Schools, the library is there to join in the celebration and hand over a free book and a library card to participating families. Kids who already have existing library cards are given a brand new I Read Card, and any previous fines are waived. The initiative is supported by the Robert C. and Dorothy L. Harder Book Fund established through the Library Foundation. In 2015-16, 8 elementary schools participated. In 2016-17, the library is looking to raise that number to 17 participating schools.
Turn your classroom into a fun learning environment with these free programs. Over 40 programs on animals, science, language and fine art, or social studies.
Because, as of summer 2015, several schools have not stayed open as usual sites for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Summer Meal Program, it became apparent to library management and staff at the time that someone would need to step in to help fill that void. They ultimately decided to help. “A hungry child can’t learn and retain like a child who is fed,” said Chief Operations Officer Rob Banks. In 2016, the library served 3,105 lunches total to an average of 60 kids a day.
During the school year, kids who visit the library after school are hungry, but their next meal is at least a few hours away. When kids are hungry, it’s harder to read, learn and get their homework done. That’s why the library has Snack Time! @ Your Library for kids ages 0-18, every weekday from 3:30-4:30 p.m. in David J’s place. Nutritious food is provided by the Millennium Cafe and the program is funded by Harvesters.
Youth services staff are out in the community, offering their skills as information professionals and helping to facilitate discussions involving the welfare of our community’s children. This is where you’ll see our librarians at the table:
United Way Community Impact Councils – The Councils discuss community issues and promising/best practices for addressing them. They then help appropriate and mobilize financial, volunteer and community resources toward achieving the goals to ensure the highest return on investment on donor dollars.
Early Childhood Collaboration of Shawnee County – Works to create a comprehensive service delivery system dedicated to ensuring a coordinated community response in serving families with children, prenatal to school age.
United Way, Grade Level Reading Network – The Shawnee County Campaign for Grade-Level Reading is dedicated to narrowing the gap between children from low-income families and their more affluent peers.
United Way, On Grade Achievement – Growing up in poverty can result in a smaller vocabulary, less time spent listening to books being read aloud and significantly lower kindergarten readiness scores. United Way targets these students for extra help to increase their success.
Topeka Public Schools, William’s Magnet FEATS program – Expanded day and after school academic program that emphasizes tutoring provided by certified teachers in core academic subjects including reading, language arts and mathematics. Curriculum also includes physical health, nutritional health and social skills development.
Shawnee County K-State Research and Extension 4-H Program Development Committee(PDC). PDC members work with the agent to develop programs that meet the needs of the youth in Shawnee County.
HENRY, WILLIAM R. (ca.1821–1862). William R. Henry, a notorious filibusterer, adventurer, and Texas Ranger, was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, around 1821, a grandson of Patrick Henry. He ran away from home while still a young man and joined the United States Army, lying about his age since he was too young to enlist. He reached Texas around 1844 after fighting in the Seminole War. During the Mexican War (1846–48) he attached himself to his old Florida regiment, the Second Dragoons, and saw action in Vera Cruz, Puebla, and Cerro Gordo. He returned to Texas by land. Eventually he settled in San Antonio, where he was sheriff from 1856 to 1858.
Henry took part in and often led some of the most controversial skirmishes along the Texas-Mexican border in the 1850s. As a Texas Ranger he participated in several operations, sometimes with the rank of captain. In July 1855 he attempted to organize an army of volunteers to intervene in Mexico and establish a government that would not threaten Texas interests. In letters to Santiago Vidaurri, the governor of Nuevo León and one of the most powerful men of Northern Mexico, Henry volunteered his services to help Vidaurri, who Henry and others presumed wanted to secede from Mexico and establish a Republic of the Sierra Madre. Vidaurri declined the offer. Henry was a principal instigator of the Callahan Expedition of 1855, which led to the burning of Piedras Negras and subsequently to years of bitter exchanges between the United States and Mexico over Mexico's demand for restitution for the destruction. In 1857 Henry, a staunch supporter of filibusterer William Walker, urged "all my frontier comrades to join me...in...Galveston" to embark for Nicaragua. As a member of Capt. William G. Tobin's Texas Ranger volunteers in the Cortina war of 1859 (see CORTINA, JUAN NEPOMUCENO), Henry provided some heroic drama to an otherwise dismal performance on the part of the Texas Rangersqv.
Henry was supremely confident and fearless, but his boldness often bordered on folly. John Salmon (Rip) Fordqv said that Henry "had rather exalted notions, and was difficult to control. He was brave, and possessed merit, but had the credit of interfering with his superior officers. He was not always in the wrong." Henry's schemes were often grandiose, reflecting that fervor so common at the time in Texas that the United States, and especially Texas, indeed had a hemispheric manifest destiny. On March 15, 1862, Henry quarreled with a man named William Adams over who was going to command the local company of Confederate troops. In a gunfight in front of the old Plaza House on the north side of Main Plaza in San Antonio, Henry was shot dead. An inquest held soon after determined that Adams, having been repeatedly provoked, had acted in self defense. Henry's wife was Consolación Urrutia. One of his daughters, also named Consolación, married Antonio M. Bruni, who became one of the largest landowners in Webb County.