Photos and story by Catherine Stachowiak
The Kern River Valley Branch Library began serving lunches this summer. Children of all ages are invited to enjoy these lunches.
Library associate Elisabeth Duvall told the Kern Valley Sun that the Lunch Grant came from the State of California. Kern High School District provides the lunches served at the library.
“The children have different activities they can do when they’re done eating,” said Duvall
There’s a sticker wall for matching letters with particular colors, a play kitchen, and there’s a drawing wall and a post it wall. She said, “We have books available for the children to build their home library so they can choose a brand new book to take home, read, and build their home library, which helps promote literacy.”
Each meal comes with all the necessary food groups, including dairy, fruits and vegetables. The library’s lunch menu is posted on the door at the lunchroom.
“We also have the reading challenge going on, which any age, read ten books or ten hours and you also get a book to build your home library that way. And we have gift certificates to different businesses such as the donut shop, the Pizza Factory, that were donated by those businesses to support reading in the community. So lots of opportunities here,” Duvall said.
The reading challenge is open for adults as well.
Audio books and story times count for the reading log during the reading challenge.
