Tok/Tanacross Imagination Library Event This Saturday

Bring your young ones to the park Saturday, June 27 between 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. for a Summer Solstice themed event with free (gently used) books, art activities, and other fun.

You’ll also be able to

Sign up your under-5 year olds for the Tok/Tanacross Imagination Library program to receive a free age-appropriate book every month in the mail; and

Donate your gently used, toddler-appropriate books that you don’t need any more for distribution to children in the community.

For more information: Carrie Beeman at 883-8080

Special thanks to our sponsors: Tok Community Clinic, Inc., Tok Community Umbrella Corporation, Best Beginnings, Rasmuson Foundation, ConocoPhillips, and Conversify.net.

And if you’d like to hang up a flyer in your establishment, feel free to print this one out! (PDF format)

flyer-IL-solstice

Tok Happenings: Save the Dates!

So much going on in Tok, so little time to get to it all. But here are two things coming up – one of them tomorrow! Hope to see you out and about. The weather is beautiful today!

April 11, 2009 (Saturday) – Imagination Library for Tok & Tanacross Kick-off event
At the Tok School Library
10:30am-12:30pm
*Come register your child between the ages of birth to 5 so that he/she can receive a free book by mail each month!
*Train activities set up for young children to do and explore
*There will be door prizes, snacks and lots of fun to be had by all.

More info about Imagination Library here.

May 16, 2009 (Saturday) – Birding Festival
Where: Tetlin NWR-Tok
Time: 8:30am-3:00pm

Join us for the 8th annual Upper Tanana Valley Migratory Bird Festival. The day begins with a morning family bird watching trip followed by a bird banding demonstration. In conjunction with this year’s theme “Celebrating Birds in Culture”, grade school students will be presenting skits, puppet shows and artwork related to the Athabascan culture and cultures around world. As in previous years, there will be the Young Naturalist and Junior Duck Stamp Art Contests. These indoor presentations will be at the Tok Mainstreet Visitor Center. From 1-3 pm, there will be outdoor Family Fun Activities at the adjacent park. Festival activities are aimed at raising the awareness of bird conservation and participation in family outdoor recreation. For more information and to sign up for the bird watching trip, contact the Tetlin Refuge at 883-5312.

Know of other local happenings? Let us know so we can help get the word out!

Imagination Library coming to Tok & Tanacross

Here’s the program I mentioned recently in this blog. My company social media marketing company Conversify is making a cash donation to the project, and I’m enrolling my 2-year-old. This is reprinted with permission from Carrie Beeman and originally appeared in the latest Mukluk News.

The Imagination Library is coming to Tok & Tanacross. With recent grants from the Rasmuson Foundation, The CIRI Foundation, and ConocoPhillips, Best Beginnings has provided matching funds to help start an Imagination Library in the communities of Tok & Tanacross.

Attend the KickOff Event!

All parents of young children living in Tok & Tanacross are encouraged to sign-up their child during the kick-off event on Saturday 4/11/09 at the Tok School Library. Drop by anytime between 10:30am-12:30pm. The theme of our event is trains. From The Little Engine That Could to Thomas The Tank Engine, there will be many activities set for young children to do and explore. In addition there will be door prizes and snacks, so mark you calendars! Volunteers are also welcome.

What is an Imagination Library you may wonder? The Imagination Library was created by the musician and actor Dolly Parton in 1996 as an effort to foster a love of reading among preschool children and their families. She did this by insuring that every child in her home community in Tennessee would have books. Reading with young children is proven to be the single most important thing parents can do to ensure their children’s success in school.

How the Imagination Library works is that each child enrolled in participating communities receives a free book in the mail every month. This means all the children in living Tok & Tanacross are now eligible from birth until their 5th birthday, allowing a child to create a home library with a total of sixty books. With the arrival of every child’s first book, the classic The Little Engine That Could every child can now experience the joy of finding their very own book in their mailbox. These moments continue each month until the very last month in the program they receive Look Out Kindergarten Here I Come. All the books in between are age appropriate and chosen by experts. They are grouped by the year the child was born.

Donations support the Imagination Library, so there is no charge to families.

If you are interested in helping with Imagination Library or participating, please leave comments here and I’ll make sure Carrie or one of us gets back to you (if you don’t already know how to reach her directly)!