Come Together

This spring left many of us walking out of our libraries and classrooms to not return again for the rest of the school year. One of the things that I do to celebrate the end of the year is to have a pizza party or potluck for my student library workers. Sadly, that didn’t work out so I dropped off something special as a thank you on their doorstep. 

But what about the rest of my kids? You know, the frequent flyers in the library from study hall and lunch? Yeah, those kids. My kids. Kids that, like my library workers, I have built strong relationships with. I wasn’t able to tell them goodbye. 

So how do I say goodbye and have a great summer? After having over 1,000 kids in the library throughout the year, I wanted to be able to have closure in some fashion. 

To come to the library from study hall or lunch, students have to sign in at the circulation desk. I took the results of the sign-in form and copied all of the student’s ID numbers and put them all into my BCC line in an email. Though it was a fairly generic email, I wished them happy summer. I let them know that I am always here for them no matter what – that we could do a Google Meet if they wanted to. I let them know that I was grateful for our time in the library together. 

I honestly just wanted to let them know that I care about them (even more so in the crazy world that we were experiencing). I didn’t expect emails back – it was summer, people don’t check their emails. Wow, was I wrong! Many students responded with a thank you or have a great summer and/or sweet messages telling me how much they loved the library. 

Something as simple as grabbing student ID numbers from my sign-in sheet and sending an email brought much joy and even stronger connections. A small amount of work for a big reward.