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  • Fighting the Summer Slide—One STEM Kit at a Time

    Fighting the Summer Slide—One STEM Kit at a Time

    By: Dwana Pinchock

    Jennifer Eley, Director of Education at Pennon Education, knows that summer vacation can be both a blessing and a challenge for school-aged children. While it’s a time for rest and family, it’s also when many students experience “summer slide”—the tendency to lose academic progress over the break.

    To combat this, Pennon Education created Slide Into Summer, a community-centered event hosted at their public media center. “Our goal is to give families meaningful, flexible ways to keep learning all summer long,” Eley explains. The event emphasizes equity by highlighting free or low-cost resources available in the community and distributing STEM-based learning kits to the first 50 families in attendance.

    Each learning kit contains several weeks of engaging science activities. “Families could use them on a rainy day or spread them out throughout the summer,” Eley says. Activity stations at the event included hands-on learning—like planting seeds in paper towel bags to observe growth, and building marble runs to explore motion and force. Kids received journals to record their observations and were encouraged to keep learning beyond the event.

    Perhaps most notably, every learning station was paired with a themed book, from fiction to nonfiction, designed to spark curiosity. A map guided families through the event, and on the back, they were encouraged to write down at least one or two book titles to borrow from their local library.

    “Our whole team is made up of former educators,” Eley adds. “We know how critical it is to keep kids reading and exploring during the summer months. That’s why we intentionally designed every activity with literacy in mind.”

    From cultivating seedlings to building roller coaster models, Slide Into Summer is more than just a fun day—it’s a strategy to keep young minds growing.

  • Getting to Know the Seed Library with Max Wilkerson 

    By: Rachel Miller

    Christian Maximilian Wilkerson, often referred to as Max, is a 17-year-old Eagle Scout with Boy Scout Troop 77. He enjoys reading, playing video games, and talking with his friends. Max often visits the East Shore Area Library to attend library programs, check out books, and more recently, visit the teen gaming section.  This year, as a project for Boy Scouts, Max created a seed library at the East Shore Area Library that has been a big success with many community members who visit that library.  

    How did you get into Boy Scouts and how has your experience with that impacted you? 

      I got into Boy Scouts when I was in first grade, they were offering Cub Scouts.  I went to the first meeting, and I enjoyed it a lot. I’ve made a lot of friends that I still have now. I think my life would have been very different without the Boy Scouts. It’s the code that Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts live by has really shaped the way I interact with people because it tells me that I need to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent, as well as doing my duty to God and my country. 

    What inspired you to make the seed library at your own library? 

    I got the idea for it in Florida because there’s a seed library at my grandparent’s library, and didn’t think we had many of those in PA. I thought it would be really cool if I could bring it to the East Shore Dauphin County Library and pay them back for all the books they’ve loaned me for the past 17 years. 

    What was your process for putting the seed bank together? 

    First, I had to research different containers to use. Originally, I was going to find one of those card catalogs that libraries used to use, but I found out they were $4,000 a pop. So, I scrapped that idea and went to Amazon to look at some cabinets that were a little smaller. I found the ones that are at the library today for about $75 each. Also, talking with Maria Lagasca (Public Services Director) about what size and what exactly the library wanted for this definitely helped a lot with the decision-making process.  

    Then I researched the different seeds and the types of seeds that would work best. Later in the project, we found out there are actually regulations on seeds that can be distributed. You can’t bring in your own seeds that you took from your garden, which forced me to adjust what you could do with the seed library.  Stauffers of Kissel Hill made a very generous donation that allowed me to purchase a lot of seeds for the seed library’s original stock. 

    I also would like people to buy seeds and if they still have the packages, bring them to the seed library because it needs restocking. Last time I was there, I noticed there were a lot of people who actually took out seeds. It was amazing to see all the people that wrote their phone numbers and names down, but the seed library does end up needing to be restocked. I would be very appreciative if people got that going, so it didn’t fizzle out. 

    What advice would you give to any other young people who want to do a similar project to benefit their community?   

    Looking around and seeing the needs in the community definitely helps find a project. Do the research. Make sure you budget correctly. Keep working no matter what setbacks you have. Just keep moving forward, and don’t give up. 

  • A Day at the Cinema – East Shore Area Cinema

    By: Barry Ernest

    There are 25 of us here on this Wednesday: 16 women, five men, four youngsters. Blinds on all the north-facing windows are drawn tight. The only light in this room is from muted overhead fluorescents. The floors are hard linoleum, the walls a pale-yellow sheetrock, the ceiling suspended. A 115-inch diagonal screen has been manually lowered to reveal its vacant white face. It is five minutes before the 2 pm showtime.

    “Been here before?” my neighbor leans over to ask.

    “No. You?”

    “Oh yes,” she says. “I’m a regular.”

    A ‘regular’ she is, at the East Shore Cinema, found in the East Shore Area Library which is set up at this moment to be a theatre.

    Snacks sit atop a nearby counter. We have individually wrapped modern candies, cold drinks, and plenty of the staple movie-time munchies: popcorn.

    “Help yourself,” we’ve been informed.

    All of us are sitting in anticipation of the movie of the month, a regular feature in a fun-filled atmosphere at this public library. Yet this venue is unlike any Regal or AMC. Here the admission is free. So too are the nibblies. You can’t beat that price.

    As my neighbor begins to utter another word, the crowd is hushed by library staffers Jenna Cholowinski and Page Kanagy. The overheads go dark as we watch Sam Spade (aka Humphrey Bogart) flash onto that once blank screen in front of us. It’s a vintage black and white 1940s film noir, The Maltese Falcon.

    “As a grade schooler, I attended movies at my library with friends and family and I loved it,” admits Todd Goclowski, co-manager at East Shore Area Library and a devoted movie buff himself.  The African Queen and The Diary of Anne Frank are two films he finds most memorable. “I want to share that experience. Also, internet and streaming services are expensive, and I feel like our offering at least gives folks a way to get to a movie affordably.”

    There’s a different movie each month at the East Shore Cinema. Their times and days vary as do the titles, ranging from classic to horror, romance to seasonal, something for every age group.

    On screen, Sam Spade is at gun point. “If you kill me, how are you going to get the bird,” he reasons, the “bird” being the heavily-sought-after statuette of the film’s title. The scene erupts into noisy fisticuffs. My neighbor jumps, then laughs at her reaction. Someone shooshes her.

    “There are several very different audiences that we aim to serve and our attempts with some groups may mean less numbers,” Todd explains. “I consider it a good crowd if we hit 12 or more, but I like the idea of being here for folks, even if it were only a handful.”

    Showing feature films on a regular basis was a personal goal set by Todd this year. He recruited staff members Deanna Bowers and Page Kanagy to hash out the idea. “We agreed that monthly was a good rhythm and that presenting it consistently would be our best chance to build an audience,” he said. 

    Movies are not picked at random. Nor are they selected by staff or based on audience votes.

    “Any movie we show has to be part of the list of licensed movies with the company we pay or contract with,” Todd said. “Unfortunately, we can’t show anything we want.”

    “East Shore Area is not the only branch to show movies,” Todd pointed out, “but it is the only branch that regularly shows them. And I believe they used to show them only occasionally here, but not as a program like we do now.” A lack of available space seems to be a factor why movies are not routine at the other locations.

    Upcoming movies are listed in advance at the library, on DCLS.org, and on its social medias.  Registration is strongly recommended.

    Coming attractions at the East Shore Cinema include “The Sandlot,” rated PG, a comedy about kids growing up in the ‘60s, playing backyard baseball, and dealing with a ferocious English Mastiff. That’s scheduled for Sunday, July 20, at 3 pm. In August, it’s Margot Robbie as the popular Barbie, rated PG-13. It has a showtime of Saturday, August 23, at 3 pm.

    Back on screen, our current movie is ending. Sam Spade has put two-and-two together. Asked to explain the meaning of the treasured falcon, he delivers the poignant and immortal line, “It’s, uh, the stuff that dreams are made of.”

    Credits appear and the lights return. People stand and stretch. My neighbor claps. Is that a tear in her eye?

    See you at the movies!