April 2024 Newsletter

We hope you have been enjoying Spring and have recovered from the seasonal allergies. The month of April seems to have flown by in the library. We started the month with a Volunteer Appreciation Dinner at Serano Farms. Everyone enjoyed the beautiful meal and atmosphere. It was exciting to see our group of volunteers grow to 52 members! We are thankful for all they do to help in the library!

Please congratulate Ailina Aponte as she moves to her new position as a Mental Wellness Peer Support Specialist next week! She has many new ideas for groups, book clubs, Wellness Wednesday arts and crafts activities, and more. It is also an honor to welcome Donna Oestrick to her new position from volunteer to Circulation Clerk and Program Coordinator. We are thankful to have Donna join our team.

Please see the information below to fill out the Healthy Williamson County survey. This survey determines the needs in a community. We hope to give them a clear indication of the services we are lacking in Jarrell.

April 25-30 is early voting for the Sonterra Bond Election and May 4 is Election Day. Voting is taking place at the Sonterra Club House. The library and its staff appreciate Sonterra MUD's in-kind donation of free rent to the library, so we can offer the services needed to our community.

I would like to personally thank Ally Breedlove for signing 10 copies of her book, When Will The Heaven Begin for our library, and Shawn Breedlove for delivering the books to us. This inspirational novel will be our book club book beginning soon. Watch for information on social media and in the library.

We hope you'll join us for an extended Cinco De Mayo on Mexicano Monday, May 6, and Firo Pizza Day, on Thursday, May 16th! See flyers for more information. We are very appreciative to our local businesses who are supporting the library and to the community members who are dining out to support our efforts! Thank you! As a small nonprofit library, we are in need of funds to pay staff, utilities, upgrades to our space, a storage bulding, and more. Donations to our library help to keep our library moving forward to support our growing community.

Stay tuned! Summer is coming soon! We are busy planning for a GREAT Summer Reading Program, STEM Forged Summer Video Game Development Camp, Touch A Truck, Community Health Fair, and much more!

Please mark your calendars and share with your friends! The Friend's Of Jarrell Library Group will be hosting an Art and Wine Walk fundraiser for the library on Sept. 28th from 11:00-5:00 at Serano Farms. This fundraiser is very important. We hope to raise funds for salaries, operations, and activities for 2025. See more information below.

Wishing you a wonderful Month of May! Summer's coming soon!

Dear Jarrell Community Members,

Healthy Williamson County wants to hear from you! This is your opportunity to share the needs of our community. Healthy Williamson County has created this survey to determine the needs of Jarrell, Texas. If you believe there should be services provided locally, this is your opportunity to speak up! Take the survey to have your voice heard and counted.

www.healthywilliamsoncounty.org/CHA

Special Events Coming Up!

May 2: 4:00-5:00 Parenting Circle Class

May 3: 11:00-12:00 Parenting Circle Class- Spanish

May 6: Mexicano Monday All Day!

May 8: 4:00-5:30 Wellness Wednesday Color your Troubles Away

May 16: Firo Pizza Fundraiser All Day!

May 20: Last Day to register for STEM Forged Camp (payment due)

May 22: 3:00-4:00 Homeschool Cirriculum and Book Swap

June 1-8: Community Health Week

June 8: Community Health Fair

June 4-7: 3:00-6:00 STEMForged Video Game Development Camp

June 11-July 27: Summer Reading Program

June 15: 10:00-12:00 Touch A Truck (garbage and recycle trucks) 10:30 Storytime

Stay up to date with the library activities at: https://jarrellcommunitylibrary.org/programs/

Firo Pizza has graciously offered to host Jarrell Library Days to raise funds for the library! The first event will be all day Thursday, May 16th. 25% of your bill will be donated to the library! We would like to thank Firo for their support! Let's eat PIZZA!

Thanks to the Georgetown Project, JCLRC will be hosting Parenting Circle Classes in both English and Spanish in March, April, and May. Please join us as we celebrate our parents and support them in their efforts as parents. There will be free babysitting available. Please see flyers. To register: https://forms.gle/ey965Y4eFn74c42K6

Do you have a child between the ages of 9-18 that enjoys video games? JCLRC will be hosting the STEM Forged Video Game Development Camp again this year. The camp is open to all levels of gamers. Those students who attended in the past are welcome to be challenged to take their game development skills to the next level.

The camp is June 3-7 from 3:00-5:30 pm. It will be held at JMS, led by Tech teacher, Michael Griffith.

Cost: $125 for the 12 hour course. Do not let the cost discourage students from attending. The library will help find sponsors to lower the cost if needed.

Sign up soon! The class has limited seating.

Mark your calendars for our first Community Health Fair! A few of the guests will be We Are Blood Donation bus, St. David's Foundation Dental Bus, Williamson County WIC bus, and many vendors with give aways and information! Sign up to donate blood. See the flyer below.

With the final month of the school year approaching it is important to try to prevent the end of year burn out. Burnout can lead to decreadsed motivation that leads to a drop in academic performance, incread anxiety and depression, feeling of disinterest in school subjects, trouble sleeping and changes in appetite.

Healthy Habits

Focus on the three M's (Meals, Movement and Meditation). Sometimes a special meal or a family walk can give an extra boost that is needed around the end of school year. Beggining and ending the day with a mindful or peaceful minute can help reduce stress and allow the body and mind to remain calm.

Sprinkles of Encouragement

Focusing on the positives and providing small accolades for hard work can really help with preventing burn out. Little post-it notes in workspaces, inspirational magnets or posters can be encouraging and help boost productivity and hard work. When feeling supported they will be more likely to push through to the end of the school year.

Motivation

If morale is low small daily or weekly rewards can help keep motivation up to make it through the last weeks of school. Some ideas include: Choosing special dinner or desert, movie night, or little trinkets. Little insentives can go a long way to help boost motivation.

Peer Support Specialist: Ailina Aponte

Hours: Tu/Th: 10:00-3:00 pm, Weds 1:00-6:00 pm, Fri. 10:00-2:00

We are proud to announce ECourage 2 Overcome Counseling will be joining our library services. Starting Sunday, June 3rd at 10:30 am, there will be in person support group meetings every Sunday. Anyone struggling with anger who would like to find a pathway to a better you are welcome to join the group. Call the library to sign up or for more information.

We will be taking a short break from storytimes to prepare for Summer Reading.

Last Storytime Dates until Summer Reading

Prek Storytime--May 7th from 10:30-11:30am

Books and Babies Storytime--May 9th from 10:30-11:30am

Bilingual Storytime--May 10th from 10:30-11:30am

This year has gone by so fast, it is hard to believe that we are coming up on our last homeschool meetup for the school year. For the April Meetup the K- 3rd Grader group learned about Spring, Plants and the importance of a Greenhouse. The 4th-12th Grade group learned about robotics, STEM and Coding.

Our last meetup will be on May 8th from 3pm-4pm and we are also hosting a curriculum and book swap on the 22nd of May from 3pm-4pm.

The Friends of the Jarrell Community Library Group dedicate their time and efforts to raising funds for the library. We would like to welcome Jenny Roberts - Axelrod as our new Vice President of the Friend's Group.

The next meeting of the Friends Group will be May 16th at 6:00 pm. We welcome all new members to join us in planning our Art and Wine Walk fundraiser being hosted at Serano Farms September 28th from 11am to 5pm. This will be our largest event to date. There is a need for many volunteers to create this event. Please spread the word to join us as we plan for the event.