Pawing Rotary members were duly impressed by the presentation made by Neena Mcbaer, Pawling Library Childrens Program Coordinator and Phillip Prout, Young Adult Program Coordinator, at Rotary’s weekly meeting this past Tuesday.  Both guests dazzled with remarkable statistics about program attendance, which increases yearly.

Neena and Phillip spoke enthusiastically about the 901 programs and events that took place at the Library in the last year, with 75 programs happening monthly across children, teen and adult programming.  2,913 children and 1,409 adults attended in-library children’s programs in 2019.  On average, 247 children and 177 adults participated monthly.  The busiest month of 2019 was July, when 500 children attended 63 programs.  The library also engages the community off campus. 570 children and 328 adults participated in outreach events.  Additionally, 16 local non-profits, businesses, and schools partnered with the library for programming/outreach purposes. 

For children, age 0-10. there were 370 in-library programs held this past year, which averaged 33 children’s programs per month with about 8 children attending each program.

Phillip shared that there was a total of 170 programs available for tweens, teens and young adults since April, when he joined the library staff, with 1,157 in attendance.  

These are clearly extraordinary numbers, especially for a small community library, and many Rotary members were astonished by the numbers of children and caregivers that participated regularly in programming at the Library.  Neena and Phillip were met with enthusiastic applause as their presentation concluded.  Rotary members commended them for their commitment to Pawling’s youngsters and for the professionalism that they bring to library programming.

Pawling Rotary consistently supports children’s programming at the library with a grant that is presented to the library at the annual Rotary holiday party in December.