In 2022, we, at Danvers Township Library, saw “Youth Art Month” on our March calendar and thought, we have a craft room full of miscellaneous art supplies. Why couldn’t we offer a weekly craft for the youth in our community?
And so we did, and the youth in our community showed up week after week to do little crafts like making suncatchers with tissue paper, shaping pipe cleaners into a stylish new accessory, and more.
In 2023, we looked at our numbers from the previous year and noticed that the young adult demographic was underserved. In order to rectify this, we asked our teen patrons what kind of classes they’d be interested in attending, and overwhelmingly, anime was the answer. And so, we kicked off Youth Art Month with an anime watercolor class using coffee, and the ever-busy, elusive teens showed up.
Each year, we invest more time and energy into creating a schedule full of art-themed programs that introduce our young community to different mediums of self-expression. In 2024, we brought in the experts—artists with years of practice and true masters of their craft. We offered collage self-portraits, painting, fairy garden building, and sewing classes, and they continued to fill up, and this year, we had to include waitlists! This March, we also incorporated an artistic contest wherein our young creatives could submit their design for our Summer Reading Program bookmark. Our winner’s design will now be featured on every bookmark that is handed out to registrants this summer. An Amazon gift card also helped incentivize the contest!
Every year, it gives our library the unique opportunity to foster creativity in a time where it's undervalued. And isn’t that what libraries are all about? We think so, and we can’t wait for Youth Art Month 2025.