While coordinating the many needs and schedules of volunteers at the library was not a course offered at my library graduate program I sure wish it was!

The amount of requests for volunteer opportunities at the library often took up much of my time as a teen librarian and inspired me to get creative with our offerings and the ways in which teen volunteers connect with the library.

At the East Brunswick Public Library I ran 6 different groups for which teen participation can earn community service hours.  These were: Teen Action Group (TAG), the First Look review club, the Teen Friends of the Library, Geek League, EBPL’s Red Cross Club, and the Teen Library Connection.

My TAG group had over 100 members and often had upwards of 65 or more in attendance each month.  Volunteers from that group helped us run both our children’s and adult programs at the library and many times we could not pull off those events without their assistance.  Teens in this group were also actively involved in the library and often created or suggested the teen programs we put on each month.

The First Look review program is a fairly simple concept I borrowed from another library.  Teens sign out our Advanced Reader Copies, read them, write reviews, and get community service hours for every one hundred pages they read.  This program has proved essential for many teens looking for community service hours as they are all very busy and often don’t have time to actually come to the library to volunteer.  And bonus, I’ve gotten some great content for the teen website! Check out their reviews here!

In 2019 (after much bugging for fundraising opportunities by the teens) we started our first Teen Friends of the Library (TFOL) group. TFOL is an offshoot of our main Friends group for teens who are interested in getting involved in fundraising for the library.  The TFOL works together on events to raise money in conjunction with their advisers from the Friends.

Geek League is a group of tech-savvy teens who offer assistance to patrons with technology questions and is at the point that it runs so smoothly I feel comfortable leaving them to the leadership of their executive board.

The EBPL Red Cross Club started in 2018 as a request from a teen.  Red Cross Clubs are offshoots from the local Red Cross unit.  The teens are able to relate their community service work to emergency and medical fields while at the same time, serving the local need. The teens planned events at the library like a Zombie Apocalypse themed disaster preparedness program, and partnered with the local chapter to do a blood drive.

The Teen Library Connection program was my proudest achievement as a teen librarian.  When I was first hired at the East Brunswick Public Library I was tasked with revamping this program.  In the past teens would come to the library over the summer for 2 week sessions for several hours a day doing mainly administrative tasks such as paper shredding, labeling books, and shelving.  We simply did not have those jobs for the teens when I arrived and frankly, I thought that sounded like the most boring and horrific way to spend your summer.  Together with the Children’s Department, I completely overhauled the program.  By the time I left, around 90 teens would apply to this highly competitive and coveted volunteer program each summer.  We have only 45 spots for the summer so we are able to pick the best of the best volunteers.  Teens work throughout the week on a giant children’s program that we would not be able to pull off without 15 teens working on it for 4 days in a row.  Programs in the past have included a Superhero’s Obstacle Course, Life-Sized Candyland, the Science of Superheroes, and a Mo Willems themed Pigeon, Piggie, and Elephant party. The programs are attended by 50-100 children each week.

For 45 years we have run this highly successful program and with these changes, the community of East Brunswick has come to look forward to seeing what the teens have come up with every Friday throughout the summer.

In the summer of 2018, TLC underwent another change which included having the teens decide what they wanted to work on over the summer as well as their own work schedules. This experiment also proved successful and I was asked to present on TLC past, present, and future at the New Jersey Youth Services Forum in the Fall of 2018.

The best part about this program for me, besides the joy I see on the teen’s faces, is that we have been able to hire a library school student each year to coordinate the program.  The library student gets the invaluable experience of planning elaborate programs while at the same time working closely with teen volunteers and the children that attend the programs.  I’m happy to get to know these future librarians and guide them on their way to their careers.  To date, every student intern we hired went on to become full time young adult librarians!