By Scott Holmes
You should not, would not, could not miss an event such as this! If you did, well you have to wait for next year. What did you miss? An opportunity to interact with elementary aged kids, college aged kids, a Star Bellied Sneech, and The Cat in The Hat! Yes, the fourth annual Seussville Family Fun Night has come and gone. Our biggest yet there were over 360 guest who came to the Jim Dan Hill Library on Thursday March 30! Add to that over 35 volunteers, your classmates and advisors all getting involved in the merriment of this fun filled night. This was one of the biggest community involved events of the whole year on our campus. It did not just happen overnight.
The Future Teachers Association along with the Veterans and Nontraditional Students Center teamed up to meticulously plan this year’s event. The plan is started with investigating dates. After getting in contact with the Duluth and Superior schools, we find a date that is free of conflicts for them, and in March of course. Why? It is the good Dr. Seuss’s birthday on March 2. Next is the inventory of supplies: we count the books and check out our craft making supplies. There are three planning meetings before the event, and a follow-up meeting after.
Next we contact every elementary school again and ask about the availability to give out flyers. All of the schools are happy to send one home if we send them flyers. For Duluth that was almost 3,000 quarter sheet flyers and 1,000 for Superior. The alumni association in Old Main printed our Duluth flyers, four per sheet.
Was it as smooth as it looked to our guests? Not really, we did not plan on having only five of our free books left, so every child got a book. There were a couple of lessons learned. The biggest lesson I learned was that this campus is a family in of itself. From the library staff, the alumni, TRIO, FTA, and the VNSC. Most of all it is the student volunteers who take the time to entertain kids right down to being crafty and dressing up as a Sneech and a giant cat with a hat!
