[Michlib-l] Sustainable Summer Reading Prizes

Wed Apr 28 13:19:20 EDT 2021

Thanks to everyone who responded with ideas and curiosity about sustainable summer reading prizes!  I’ve collected the responses below and highlighted key points to make this scannable.

I think it’s great that you are looking to be more earth friendly with your prizes! Before Covid, we gave out donated coupons to local businesses each week of summer reading. Last year, because of Covid, we did drawings for “grand prizes,” with each of our four age groups (baby, child, teen, adult) having two grand prizes. This year we are doing something similar, but for baby, child, and teen, we are going to spread the love a bit more and buy multiple medium size prizes (gift cards, books, games, nice toys, etc.) so that we can draw more winners.

Another idea to consider is prizes for the library itself. For example, you might choose four options of things that can be purchased for the library, and patrons get tickets to vote for what they want throughout, or at the end, of summer reading. Whatever item gets the most votes, gets purchased for the library; the options are really endless depending on what you already have, tools to add to your Library of Things, a board game collection to enjoy at the library, a 3D printer, a train table/play kitchen. I had also suggested using this model for choosing a children’s performer to visit in the fall.

If you feel like you have to do frequent little prizes, I love things that are both fun but have a purpose, like unique erasers or crayons (fun sticky notes, binder clips, laptop decals for teens and adults?!), anything that can be “used up.”

Books is probably an obvious suggestion 🙂, but when you said sustainable, I immediately thought gardening. Maybe some gardening kits? My son has several metal trowels he uses for various things (sand, mud, rocks), and a kit with a pot, seeds, and potting soil might be nice. Just a thought.

Last year instead of buying cheap plastic doo-dads, whatchamacallits, and thingamajigs, we worked with a local toy store who gave us a pretty generous discount and bought prizes that people would actually want, then raffled them at the end.  So instead of getting a prize for each step of summer reading, they earned a raffle ticket.  It bums me out that not everyone will receive a prize, but that's life -- AND we were able to keep stuff out of landfills and put money back in the local economy.  We will probably do something similar this year.

We have been trying to move away from all the plastic waste with our prizes too. We have been giving out prizes like a free book from our

Friends used bookstore, candy bars, drawstring backpacks, gift cards to local bookstores like Barnes & Noble, passes for local activities such

as laser tag and roller skating, and the local business coupons you mentioned for things like frozen yogurt too. One option that I'm hoping

we may implement in future is to also have a collective prize donation made on the library readers' behalf to a charity (a literacy charity

would be good!). Depending on the total minutes/pages/books etc. that your whole base of readers completes, that counts towards a donation

amount of your library's ability.

An idea just popped into my head, and I wonder if library policies or rules would allow for it.  Possibly readers could choose that their milestones of books or minutes read (however you tally them) could be turned into donations to a local animal shelter, food bank, books for the economically disadvantaged, or planting trees or gardens at the library or local park?  I am thinking of how a walk-a-thon or read-a-thon raises funds, but it would not be for the readers to get their own pledges. Insted, the money budgeted for prizes would go toward the sustainable or more impactful project.  If one or more charities or causes were designated, the readers could choose.

I was a teen librarian for twelve years and I know the struggle to find useful items for prizes.  The youth department often gave out bags of chips, fruit chews, or other snacks.  I finally gave out candy bars and gum too, but these were always choices.  For teens, they were not big prizes, but they were in combination with other small prizes and each time they completed a reader sheet that sheet became a raffle ticket for bigger prizes at the end of the program.  The big prizes were usually gift cards and a number of other prizes.

I hope this helps.  I continue to think of trees and wonder how much a batch of seedlings like those one gets on Arbor Day and Earth Day, cost?  I wonder if they are easy enough to keep alive to have them available for prizes. These Arbor Day Foundation seedlings<https://shop.arborday.org/tree-seedlings-in-bulk> are sold out, but if you like the idea, there are other options.

What about tickets to local places - zoos, museums, public performances, etc?

In college, I actually participated in a summer education program that gave out nature-friendly items that encouraged conservation, like book-themed birdhouses, seeds to plant a 'fairy tale window garden' and reusable water bottles with the logo of the challenge on them!

For many years we have partnered with the local ice cream stand (for cone coupon), coffee shop (for cookie coupons), and pizza restaurant (personal pizza coupon). They have been very popular because they also become a family outing when kids read to earn the coupons. The pizza place gives us the pizza with no sharing of the cost, while the other two are subsidized through the library's grant to pay about .80 - $1.00 per coupons. It really works out quite nicely for all. The library prepares the coupons with business approval, and staff fill in the reader's name and then initial it to make it active.

We, too, have done the local food coupons. Beyond that, well, a lego e-giftcard for one of the raffle grand prize choices (hands down the most popular choice), and that's plastic, too. But most people think of them differently from "made overseas trinkets."

We are trying to do the same thing. Instead of weekly prizes, we give out a sign up prize (a sticker badge book for kids and a "Wreck this Journal" for teens) and a middle of the summer prize (a free book from the Friends of the Library bookstore and a raffle at the end for gift cards to local businesses.

Additionally, last year, we rented an ice cream trolley/cart for our end of the year/last summer reading program. Any kid who participated got to choose an ice cream treat for free. We had 4 choices including one non-dairy. We also sold ice-cream to others (parents, grandparents, passers-by (we were stationed outside)) and made $300 for the Friends of the Library. We ran it for 3 days to allow families the chance to come by...I'm sure we had a couple families come twice, but we had plenty of ice cream with leftovers for staff.

From Cathy Lancaster:

We have some shared notes from our 2021 SRP workshop: https://bit.ly/MI_Tails_Tales, but we didn’t focus much on prizes. However, last year’s prize list might be helpful for you: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-foAl9KeotdiYXD26dA2KUE7hfUWivRTBRD_-EcMwnU/edit?usp=sharing.

Other Sources:

https://www.ecopromotionsonline.com/blog/02272017-1015/eco-friendly-promotional-products-2017-national-library-week-summer-reading

https://earthfriendlytips.com/best-eco-friendly-gifts-for-kids/

Barbara Beaton

Assistant Director/Reference Librarian

Milan Public Library

Milan, MI 48160

734-439-1240

www.milanlibrary.org<http://www.milanlibrary.org>

she/her
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