8-24-2023 4:06am

StoryWalk® Opportunities at Bally and Boyertown Community Parks

Lesley Misko Editor

by Jane Stahl

Ready, Set, Walk…and Read!

Both the Boyertown and Bally communities welcome young readers and caretakers to their StoryWalks® to enhance reading while taking a walk in their community parks.

"The Storm Whale" is featured on Bally's StoryWalk® and available Thursdays in August from 9 a.m.-6 p.m., weather permitting.

In Boyertown, Sairra Cloen, Boyertown Community staff member; Lindsey Mason, former director of the Boyertown Community Library; and Barbara Kreisler, volunteer, are celebrating a dream they’ve had for years: the establishment of a permanent StoryWalk® at the Boyertown Community Park. Families can now enjoy stories in the park every day—not just Wednesdays in good weather.

“Call me a nerd,” offers Lindsey, “but I am so excited for this project. “I’m so proud of Sairra and Barbara for all the hard work and effort that went into making our dream come true.”

“I wasn’t sure if this was something we could actually do,” Sairra admits, “but when a member of our fundraising committee said ‘Let’s try,’ I was excited that it became a reality.”

StoryWalk® started in the mid-West in 2007 and has taken off in communities through the country. The local effort began in 2020, when the Boyertown Community Library set up a temporary StoryWalk® using yard signs in the park to display the book pages each Wednesday.

In 2021, local businesses participated; pages of the book-of-the-month were mounted inside each business. Families visited each business as they followed the story and then visited the library to pick up an activity packet. The project has been popular with families in the community.

“The StoryWalk® through town provided some exposure for our area businesses, and it’s a shame to lose that aspect of the project by moving it to the park,” notes Sairra, “but having it at the park provides the additional benefit of families being in nature together.”

A StoryWalk® features pages from a book, laminated to protect them from the weather, and displayed along a trail or walking path to encourage both literacy and outdoor experiences.

Photograph from StoryWalk® website

In July 2023, the library installed a permanent StoryWalk®, making a display of book pages available year-round in any weather. The library plans to have a new story displayed every month, available all month.

Support for the StoryWalk® has been a community effort. Proceeds from the library’s annual Disk Golf Tournament hosted by the library’s Fundraising Committee and Phat Cats Disco Golf group, funded the project. Cement and other supplies were generously donated by AD Moyer Lumber. An amazing team of volunteers assisted in the installation of the posts.

A ribbon cutting ceremony to introduce the StoryWalk® to the community and thank the Phat Cats Disk Golf Club for their generous support is planned sometime before the start of the disk golf tournament on September 30, 2023.

Beyond the StoryWalk® project, Sairra encourages folks to sign up for the library newsletter online at berkslibraries.org/boyertown, or find the library on Facebook and Instagram to stay in the know and hear about upcoming events, programs, and other happenings. For questions or information, contact: Sairra Cloen, scloen@boyertownlibrary.org, 610-369-0496.

The StoryWalk® trio: Making the Dream Come True
Sairra Cloen joined the library staff five years ago following high school graduation. The Boyertown Community Library was a regular feature during her home-school education. Sairra posts the library’s events on social media and shares that they often attract several dozen participants. “The painting parties are particularly popular,” she adds.

Sairra chooses the stories for the StoryWalk®, changes the stories each month, collects information from surveys that participants complete when they come to pick up the activities at the library following their walks.

Lindsey Mason, BASH grad, class of 2001, held the position of library director in Boyertown for three years before securing a librarian position—first--in the Reading School District and in her current position as middle school librarian in the Wilson School District.

While becoming a music teacher was her initial career goal with a college major in vocal performance and a minor in piano, she was forced to switch goals following vocal cord surgery. Returning to college, she considered reading specialist or library science. Following her experience as a public librarian, her experiences subbing for school librarians led to acknowledging that she had found her niche. Lindsey was named Boyertown’s 66th Citizen of the Year 2000.

Both Lindsey and Barbara Kreisler share that today’s libraries changed at the turn of the century. Gone are card catalogues, replaced by computers. And gone are the librarians behind glasses poised at the ends of their noses, demanding quiet throughout their domain. Both like a lively, loud library. No schussing allowed!

Barbara had hoped to teach art. Today she is the go-to person to plan events, to decorate spaces within the library and to create theme-based raffle baskets for the library’s fundraising projects. “Barbara’s very crafty,” quips Lindsey.

Barbara learned about StoryWalk® from her daughter, a reference librarian, who learned about the project during a conference and encouraged her mother to explore the possibility of bringing StoryWalk® to Boyertown.

Permissions were secured from local authorities—the Borough of Boyertown, and the Parks and Recreation Committee. Endorsement from the library board of directors and fundraising efforts of the library’s fundraising committee, The Friends of the Boyertown Community Library, and the local disk golf group, the Phat Cats, provided the motivation and funds necessary in initiating the project.

Lindsey’s establishment of the library’s fundraising committee—a committee that has grown significantly since its origin--along with proceeds from The Phat Cats’ disk golf tournament the group has run for five years have provided major funding for the StoryWalk® project.

“Support your local library; use your local library,” urges Lindsey. “Learn about our offerings,” suggests Sairra. “And visit us often!”

Enjoy our conversation on the “B Inspired” podcast available on your favorite podcast platform like Anchor FM, Spotify, Google, Castbox, Breaker, Overcast, Pocket Casts, and RadioPublic. Apple. https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jane-stahl/episodes/Boyertown-C…

*StoryWalk®: The StoryWalk® Project was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, VT, and developed in collaboration with the Kellogg-Hubbard Library. StoryWalk® is a registered service mark owned by Ms. Ferguson.

When Anne Ferguson was working with the Vermont Department of Health, she created project as a way to convince families to get outside and be active while engaging with literacy. She was on the hunt to create something that required the adults to be active alongside children, with no financial limitations that would leave some families out. StoryWalk was born.

What does this actually look like? The creator literally takes a book apart and displays it outside, one page at a time, in the correct order. Ms. Ferguson shares tips for her preferred supplies in the StoryWalk FAQ, but StoryWalks are displayed in a variety of ways. From pages attached to fences to fancy podium-style boxes with plexiglass lids, the possibilities are vast, but the outcome is the same: people are encouraged to continue walking to find the next page of the book. There is literacy, there is nature, there is movement. Win, win, win.

The original goal for The StoryWalk Project was to have stories placed outside in nature. Public walking trails are a natural and obvious place to start, but the project has expanded to include city settings such as main street businesses and school playgrounds. If you consider that the aim is to have families moving outside, any safe route that lets you space out pages can be used. In my city, I’ve spotted books spaced along the walking trail that circles a local pond, and around the circumference of our city-owned working apple orchard.

There are, of course, practical considerations that need to be addressed. Spaces that take a hard hit from the elements (super high winds, for example) are not ideal. Anne Ferguson hilariously shares these tips for avoiding damage caused by humans in her StoryWalk History: “Vandals are a recurring challenge. They seem to be threatened by a story about Gossie, a small duck who has misplaced his red rubber boots. A range of approaches has been used to address this issue, some with greater success than others. The Velcro® makes it easy to take down the pages before dark and post them again in the morning. Vandals prefer the cover of darkness.”

HOW DO YOU MAKE A STORYWALK?

The creation of a StoryWalk is deceptively easy, but there are some particulars that make all the difference in success rates. Copyright laws allow you to use existing books you have purchased, but you cannot enlarge or alter the text in any way, so the move is to carefully dismantle the book itself. After you have your pages, they need to be backed on something stiff (card stock is a favorite) and, most importantly, laminated. Anne Ferguson, in her StoryWalk FAQ page, gives amazing detail into how she prepares books to be displayed. A wide margin of laminate and extremely strong velcro seem to be key components.

WHAT BOOKS ARE GOOD FOR A STORYWALK?

There is a lot to consider when choosing a title. It’s important to have engaging illustrations and pages that don’t include too much text. A plot-driven story that will motivate the families to find the next page is extremely helpful. Different communities and even areas within your community might have different literacy needs, including languages spoken and messages conveyed.

There are a few instances in the Northeastern U.S. of StoryWalk libraries, where community organizations can borrow titles already prepared for StoryWalk. The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care has five resource centers with StoryWalk books available. Anne Ferguson herself has a collection of books available to borrow for up to two weeks, which are let through the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier, Vermont.

*Information about the StoryWalk® project was taken from*https://bookriot.com/making-a-storywalk/