I'm going to go ahead and get this recording started and introduce our presenters today.  I'm so pleased that The Lunch At the Library will be showcased in today's session by some of the folks that have been leading the team in California.  Trish Garone comes to us from the California Library Association. 
She's the program's manager there.  Patrice Chamberlain is the executive director of the California Summer Meal Coalition, and Jasmin la bowis one of the libraries lunch at the library program.  Welcome to all of you, and we're going to go ahead and shift over.  We're going to have Patrice kick off our session today.  
Welcome, Patrice.  
>> Patrice: Thank you.  Hi, everybody.  So, today will be a test of my ability to speak, think, and move slides at the same time, so we'll see how I do.  
I want to start by introducing myself.  As Jennifer say, I'm the director of the California Summer Meal Coalition, which is a program for the institute of local government.  The coalition is a statewide network of local and state agencies that have been working for the last several years to help ensure that kids in low-income neighborhoods continue to have access to healthy food when school is out.  When I came into this several years ago, it was from a perspective of trying to understand why the summer meal programs were so underutilized in California and with really a narrow focus on food insecurity.
It was through these early meetings with schools, cities, county agencies, and community-based organizations that we realized that we weren't looking at the full picture of what was happening when school is out.  
Cuts to summer school and to summer programs here in California really hit communities pretty severely, so we really had to take a step back and ask ourselves, what was going on during summer in communities throughout the state.  What we found was that a lot of the people at the city or county level thought that kids were in summer school.  People at the school level thought that kids were at the community center or at the park, but really what we found out was that a lot of kids were at home while their parents worked or many of them were spending full days at the library, so we really kind of realized that we needed to have this conversation between agencies to kind of find out what was happening in summer and how we could combine resources to make sure that these kids were staying healthy and engaged so that they could go back to school in the fall healthy and ready to learn.  
That was what led to our collaboration with the California Library Association and California state Library.  
We were working more towards a whole child approach.  We know that California is not the only state where agencies are working with limited resources, so we knew that we needed to figure out ways that we could do this that would build on the existing assets in communities and understanding that nobody could solve this problem on their own, but by each agency pitching in, we could come up with something to ensure that kids were having their needs met during summer.  
We do this really by taking inventory of these two really basic assets that we had in pretty much all communities.  
That's libraries and summer meal programs, but we realized also that in thinking through how we could do this that it wasn't going to be a one-size-fits-all approach.  We know that urban and rural communities have a lot of challenges in common, but also a lot of very unique challenges, so this really needed to build on these two basic assets, but really build a tailored approach building on the things that exist in each community.  
All right.  There we go.  My slide moving approach.  To kind of help flesh out the summer landscape for you-all, as we started to merge our universes, we realized that in a lot of communities summer was potentially creating the perfect storm for bad outcomes and creating this environment that was jeopardizing the health and the academic future of youth in low-income families and neighborhoods.  In addition to -- by losing access to subsidized breakfast and lunch programs that many kids had at school, we knew it was much harder for families as they had to absorb the additional food cost during summer, forcing many of these families to make difficult choices between rent, utilities, transportation, and sometimes child care.  We also knew many families really were struggling to just get through the summer months financially.  
We'd also been hearing from many community members that their neighborhoods just weren't safe and didn't have safe places for kids to play or parents didn't want their kids out playing alone, so what we had been hearing was that many kids were at home and not being physically active and therefore increasing their risk for obesity.  We also knew that kids were at risk of gaining weight two to three times faster during the summer and then having a harder time taking off that weight during the school year.  This was also making it harder for many of our school partners who were working really diligently during this school year to promote nutrition, so we knew that there was this disconnect as far as obesity prevention efforts where we weren't also ensuring that kids had access to healthy food and safe places to play during the summer.  
We also knew, too, that many of these neighborhoods don't even have places where families can purchase affordable healthy food, so we knew in many places there was just a real gap in these food desert communities.  
I'm sure many of you are well aware of the summer learning loss component and the impact that the loss in reading skills can have on kids and the cumulative effect of affecting kids' rate on graduation.  
Knowing that kids are not in enrolled in any kind of formal summer learning or enrichment program but may be stuck at home all summer, many of them are also at increased risk of social isolation.  We know that is really crucial for developing kids in terms of their social and emotional development, so this is where summer meal programs come in.  
The simpliest way to think about this is the summer food service program acts as the summer arm to the national school Lunch Program.  Its purpose is to ensure that kids who rely on subsidized lunch programs have that continuity and nutrition when school is out.  I'm really going to paint this in broad strokes, but the information is out there with the more specific details with how this works, but I really just want to provide an overview.  
Agencies are reimbursed by providing healthy meals.  That's meals that meet federal nutrition guidelines to kids 18 and under in low-income neighborhoods.  These agencies can be city or county agencies. 
They can be school districts, tribes, or nonprofit community-based organizations.  
The meals can be breakfast or lunch or snack or a combination of some of them.  And the key is that the sites at which these meals are served have to be in an area where at least 50% of the kids in the school in areas are eligible for free or reduced price meals during the school year.  The great thing about this program is all kids eat.  
Even though the site is in a low-income neighborhood, every child that comes from a meal can receive one.  There's no paperwork, no income verification or documents required of families, so it really is an incredible opportunity and very much in line with libraries' philosophy of providing equal access to the community.  
The way this works is that in every state in the United States the U.S. department of Agriculture works in partnership with your state agency.  In most of your states, it is the state Department of Education.  In some states it may be the department of Agriculture.  In California, it is the California Department of Education.  Then they work with the sponsors who might be a school district or a food bank who then serves meals at the sites and then is reimbursed for providing those meals.  So, this all sounds really great, right?  
Then you might be pretty shocked to learn that across the nation summer meal programs are not reaching nearly as many kids as we know would benefit from them.  There are many reasons for this, but a big part of it is that we need sites that are appealing and desirable and accessible to kids and their families.  In our state, we are reaching less than 20% of the kids in California that are eligible for free and reduced price meals, so we're really missing out on a lot of kids.  
If you're curious to know how your state is doing, you can go to the food research and action center at frac.org.  You can find out how many meals are being served during the school year versus how many are reaching kids during the summer.
I promise pretty much everybody's state can be reaching more kids.  This is really why we need more libraries to get involved, because we know that kids need both learning and food opportunities during the summer.
So, I just want to give you a quick idea if you're ready to jump right on board, as I'm sure many of you are.  If you're looking to get a sense of whether or not your library is eligible to serve summer meals to kids, there are two kind of primary ways to do this.  The easiest way might be to just contact your local school district nutrition director and find out.  They have the data and can tell you whether or not your library is eligible to serve summer meals.  There's another way you can do this.  
That's by going to the USDA website and using their capacity builder tool.  This tool, which is really an incredible resource for a number of reasons, but it uses census data to identify whether or not your library branch exists in an area that's eligible to serve summer meals usng census block tracker data.
You can add different layers so you can add anything from -- you can find out where there might be a HUD housing development or in the example in this snapshot that I've taken I think the little block is a school.  You can find libraries.  You can find farmers' markets.  You can really understand where your library is in relation to other potential partners in the community, and I think in thinking about serving summer meals it's really a valuable way to find out where there might be other partners that you can connect with in serving summer meals.  
So, the next step is finding a provider.  As I mentioned, your school district may be your best start.  However, not every community has an open school district during the summer, so -- or maybe they don't operate a summer meal program.  
In that case, sometimes your food bank is another great resource.  Again, if you go to frac.org, they can also connect you with your local anti-hunger advocates many of whom I work with and I know are incredible resources.  They can also connect you with local summer meal providers.  Your food banks regardless, I think, are great resources as they are doing so much great work with the community already.  They might be able to connect you with another provider.  They may even be able to help offer supplementary support.  Many of the libraries with whom we work work with the food banks to provide additional produce for families, which I think is great, because one of the points that I didn't mention earlier is because this food program is strictly for children and teens 18 and under, adults cannot eat the food, so that can be kind of tricky in some communities.  
There are opportunities to work with your food bank to see if there are ways that you can support families as a whole.  
I'd also recommend visiting lunchatthelibrary.org where we have a pretty thorough list along with resources about how to get started.  Setting up an introductory meeting with a meal provider and getting some key questions answered and ensuring that you have the right staff involved in that meeting can help ensure that a process goes smoothly from the start, so we have a list of questions that you can ask that are important as well as sort of a dictionary of cronyms that we use when we're talking about the USDA child and nutrition programs that might seem like a foreign language.  This introductory meeting can also help provide a clear timeline about when to expect things and now you can know what to expect going forward.  
I'm sorry.  My slides are not moving very quickly.  Let me try it this way.  
Okay.  This is just a short list of some of the partnership possibilities.  We have seen so many incredible partnerships in California that it would take many slides, if we had a complete list, but I think one of the key things is that libraries in partnership with a summer meal provider are really enabling other agencies to see libraries differently and see how there's this opportunity for agencies to work through libraries to reach the community.  
The benefits to the library that we've seen is that this really helps library staff and leaders feel like more of a team.  They really realize that they were doing something for the good of the community that really was inspiring in many ways.  We've heard this repeatedly throughout the state from the libraries.  We also found that this was a great opportunity for collaboration between other city or county or special district agencies so that other agencies within your municipality can get a better understanding of the many services that your library does offer.  The partnership potential and really getting everybody to work towards a common goal has really just been instrumental in creating sort of a community wide vision to serving kids and families during the summer.  I'm sorry I kind of rushed through this, but I will post some additional resources in the chat box following our presentation that I think might be helpful, especially for those of you in rural communities where you might need some additional magic and resources. 
With that, I'm going to pass it back to you, Jennifer.  
>> (Jennifer speaking).  
Excellent.  Thank you so much, Patrice.  
I think we're ready for Trish to take it on over.  
>> Trish: Great.  Hi, everyone. 
My name is Trish Garone.  I'm at the summer of your library programLibrary Association. 
The program was filed by a very generous grant and is currently supported by IMLS administered in California by the state librarian.  
Gosh, I am so excited to be here and so happy you are all here, too.  I am going to try and pick up where Patrice left off and give you a picture, as best as I can and as comprehensively as I can in the little time I have, of what summer meals look like in California libraries and really highlight some of the great work libraries are doing to create successful, enriching summer meal programs.  
There are so many exciting things going on in California libraries.  We've learned so much from the California libraries over the past five years, and I really want to share it all with you, so I know I'm going to squeeze in way too much.  My apoloies for that.  
First of all, let me advance the slide.  
First of all, libraries are the perfect summer meal sites.  The lunch at the library project was established five years ago.  To us, it feels a well-established fact that they are natural spaces for offering free summer meals.  We still get asked, why would you serve food at a library?  Libraries as meal sites are really attractive to families.  They're trusted community spaces at the heart of neighborhoods.  They're highly valued by the community.  They have a plethora of resources useful to families, and as part of the summer reading programs, librares offer programs, activities, and learning opportunities all provided free of charge and all easily accessible to families who come to the library for lunch.  
The number of libraries serving summer meals is really on the rise in California.  In 2013, the number of participating sites serving summer meals was 17.  And now I think this past summer of 2017 we had 164 library summer meal sites in California.  We know both from participation members and through feedback on evaluation surveys that more often than not libraries are the preferred venue for families to come have their summer meals.  In addition to the food, the library provides an enjoyable experience for families.  Many children, teens, and caregivers report spending several hours at the library once they have come for lunch, staying for perhaps a library program, spending time on the computers, or participate ing in some aspect of the summer reading program.  
Library summer meals are just all around -- are an all-around win with a capital W.  They're not only -- they not only do wonderful things for the children, teens, and caregivers, but the library benefits as well.  Librarians get to see new faces.  They report that their lunch programs bring new families to the library that they wouldn't have seen otherwise, and almost universally, libraries state that the program helps them engage previously underserved community members with library resources.  Libraries that offer summer meals report seeing an increase in the number of people signed up for their summer reading programs and an increase in the number of new library cards issued.  And the lunch program provides library staff with an excellent opportunity to engage families and create a real connection so that families feel comfortable returning and using the library services.  
Lunch programs have also proven to be wonderful opportunities for libraries to forge new partnerships, which Patrice talked about, partnerships with city officials, school districts, local city and county health departments just to name a few.  
I think if there's nothing else that you come away with is that the types of libraries serving summer meals is incredibly diverse.  There's rural, urban, and suburban libraries serving summer meals, small one-room libraries, large city central libraries.  They're all figuring out how to serve meals in a variety of spaces.  Several California libraries utilize outdoor spaces.  Maybe a patio or a courtyard since they don't have the luxury of an enclosed community room, and some libraries opt to serve summer meals as if lunchtime was a giant indoor picnic with families seated on tarps or table cloths or on the ground.  
Some serve meals on tables between bookshelves in the main reading room and others at a communal table in a small one-room library.  Some opt to serve in shifts to accommodate more people than they have chairs for, so more often than not, if there's a will, there really is almost always a way.  
I want to just add that some California libraries that now serve summer meals five days a week did test the waters with nervous staff and nervous administration by starting out by serving summer meals a few days a week or by serving snacks.  I mention this just to illustrate that there are all sorts of ways to make serving summer meals work for your library.  There's no one right way.  Whatever way will allow you to make a start of it is the right approach, so really just please keep that in mind.  
For many families, lunch at the library really is often the first introduction to the library.  It's a great way to expose lunch goers to programming opportunities, the library summer reading program, and to all the services that the library can offer.  A lot of the California libraries are really making an effort to create an inviting space for their meal services, which they know can draw people in and make them feel welcomed.  When staff and volunteers make a real commitment to making the lunch space welcoming, cheerful, and engaging, it really elevates the meal service to a pretty amazing place.  Some libraries have designated greeters or might decorate the tables with standing picture books or graphic novels or have little succulent plants at each table. 
Some sites have story time during the meal program while others have building toys and games on hand in the lunchroom. 
It really is all about the feeling that you create more than anything else.  With really a minimal cost and effort, so many California libraries are creating lunch spaces that just as you walk in the door they say, welcome to the library.  
Welcome to lunch.  We are so happy you are here.  And I have visited a lot of libraries over the summers.  When you walk into a space where you can tell the library has made the effort to create a welcoming feeling, I mean you feel it right away, so that's just something that's pretty wonderful when people pay attention to creating that welcoming feeling.  
One of the reasons public library summer meal programs are so successful is because the activities and learning opportunities that library staff are providing.  By schedule complimentary enrichment programs before or just following the meal service, those taking advantage of the free summer meals can also easily participate in a host of free programs.  Kids and teens utilizing the library summer meal program are often not enrolled in a summer enrichment program, so connecting them and their families to the free library programs and the library summer reading program helps ensure that the meal program truly enriches the summers of those walking through the doors.
Again, I know I'm squeezing in a lot, but I just want you to hear about all the different things we're doing in California in case it inspires something for you.  
Public library summer meal programs can also be really effective use of development programs.  We know a lot of summer meal programs rely heavily on volunteers, and the biggest volunteer group is really turning out to be teens. 
Establishing a youth volunteer program in your library gives teens the opportunity for community service as well as to develop much-needed skills such as problem solving, teamwork, time management, organization and communication skills.  Teens are helping library staff set up and break down the lunchroom, greet families, serve meals, assist with summer reading sign-ups in the summer meal space, and several California libraries have really focused on this youth development aspect of the lunch at the library program.  Library staff have helped teens translate the work that they've been doing into resumes that they can use in their job seeking endeavors.  
Then I just want to really briefly -- I'm going to skip through the slides because I know we want to hear from Jasmin, who is in the trenches on the ground, a librarian actually doing lunch at the library, but just briefly we worked with a team of -- I'm sorry.  I've lost my slide here.
Yeah.  Here in California, we try to collect output and outcomes data at summer meal sites.  Output data allows us to demonstrate the project's breadth and reach.  We ask libraries to fill out a participation survey where we gather the number of summer meals served and other output data.  We also collect outcomes data in the form of surveys to families that the libraries distribute.  And this data helps demonstrate the program's value and impact.  
We worked with a team of California librarians to set two program outcomes.  One, families know they can get help and essential resources at the library, and, two, families feel healthy, happy, and safe.  I'm going to just skip that.  
We encourage all libraries planning a summer meal program to plan and structure their programs with outcomes in mind. 
It will lead to more impactful programs and will help to demonstrate the impact and value of all your great work.  
The most important thing to remember when presenting an outcome-based program, whether you decide to use California's statewide outcomes or come up with your own, is if you want to achieve your program outcomes, you need to have designed your programs with outcomes in mind. 
You make sure that all staff are aware of the outcomes you're trying to achieve.  And if you're going to use the California statewide outcomes, you'll be making sure that your lunch programs are designed to connect families with library resources and help them feel happy, healthy, and safe while they're at your meal program.  
Finally, just as Patrice mentioned, I wanted to make you aware of the lunch at the library website that the California Library Association and the California Summer Meal Coalition maintain.  Pretty much all of the information that Patrice talked about and that I've talked about is discussed on the website.  We really encourage you to take a look at it and spend some time with it and use those resources however they might help you get your programs off the ground.  
With that, I'm going to hand things over to Jasmin, who will be able to paint you a picture from a library perspective of what it's like to host a very successful lunch at the library summer meal program.  
>> Jasmin: Trish, I'm going to just jump in too.  There was a good question that I think you and Patrice maybe could address.
When you are having challenges in terms of securing sponsors, one person mentioned that their sponsor didn't participate last year and they probably won't again this summer.  In terms of identifying potential sponsors in even other counties might be an approach.  But when you're finding there aren't as many sponsors in your community, what are some of the recommendations you might have, possibly partnering with a local hospital?  Have you a sense of some of the other sort of non-expectant sponsors available?  Do you have a suggestion for those folks?  
>> Trish: This is Trish.  I'm going to defer to Patrice on that because this is much more her area of expertise.  
>> Patrice: Yeah, I'll put some links in the chat box, but I think that -- I'm really glad it was raised about the hospital because one of the things that we are seeing is that there are a growing number of hospitals and health care providers that are really engaged in the conversation about food insecurity.  They understand an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so there are a lot of more hospitals and health care providers are taking on food insecurity as well as literacy as things that they want to get involved in.  I will include some links about working with a local hospital, but I think that is a great idea.  
Again, I would also try to locate the local anti-hunger advocacy group.  Usually, there's a statewide anti-hunger advocacy group that can work with your library to connect you with a sponsor.  There is a possibility to have a sponsor in another local county if your agency isn't willing to do it.  
>> Right.  Thanks so much.  
Jasmin, I'm going to give you a question.  I know you talk about marketing.  There was a question about advice for marketing summer meals in a way that lets community that all, not just those who need assistance, are welcome.  There is sometimes hesitation from families who don't think it is appropriate or that they don't need the assistance, but would love the food to go to the kids.  As you move through, you can maybe address that.  I know you're talking about marketing in your piece, so thank you.  Welcome, Jasmin.  
>> Jasmin: Hi.  This is Jasmin. 
Yeah, we'll go a little bit over that because that is one of the challenges dealing with the program.  Parents that feel that they might be taking from others or parents that feel that they shouldn't attend because of the origins of the program, but we will address that and I'll explain how we've anticipated it over the last several years.  
As I said, my name is Jasmin LoBasso.  I work in the marketing and promotions position of the Kern County library.  I manage our website, our marketing, our special programming, including summer reading and lunch at the library and anything pretty much that our director throws at us.  Just to get started, I will start with how we began.  
With the history of our lunch at the library program, we began in 2014, about a year after the rest of other libraries in the state.  I actually am -- was not a part of the original team that started up at Beale.  I was here working in 2014, and my supervisor was the one who got -- was able to procure the food vendor.  She was the assistant director at the time, and now she is the director, so she actually walked up to me about three weeks before the program started and said, this is what we're doing.  I actually didn't know a lot about it when I first started.  I was as blind as many staff are when they are beginning this program.  To convince our administration here at the Kern County library that it would be a feasible program, we ended up ourselves, our director -- Andy is her name.  
Andy and I were the only two full-time staff members that were running the program here at Beale.  
Beale is our main library branch here at the Kern County library.  It is an urban area, but it is also in a low-income area of the city.  And it has a nice auditorium space, so we knew that it would be the most feasible spot to hold the program initially just because we wanted it to be successful.  
For it to be successful, we wanted to give every single opportunity for it to be, so we held it at the Beale.  We also decided that it would be during the entirety of summer reading, so it was all of June and all July at our library.  Our food vendor was the local superintendent of schools.  They were also nervous.  They'd never done anything like this before, but they were also really excited and really onhelped to have a vendor that was really excited and on board, especially since at that time we didn't have any sort of outcomes to show them.  
That was kind of how it started.
We had three weeks to advertise it, so we utilized social media, which initially we thought we would have to pay advertisements for, but the social media just took off.  We shared that free lunch is available at the Beale during June/July Monday through Friday, and people were very excited.  We had thousands and thousands of people share it and talk about it.  We weren't expecting such strong feedback initially, especially since we didn't have time to do a full-scale campaign and advertise it to the community.  
As I said, it was being run only by me and my supervisor.  We also had one part-time staff member.  We all worked in what is considered the administrative headquarters area of the library, so none of the actual branch staff ran the program.  
It was just me and my supervisor, so we were the ones who were cleaning up, setting up every single day.  
One of the challenges we encountered is since we had such little time before it became confirmed that it would begin we actually hold a book sale in our auditorium, which is where we were holding the event.  For about two weeks in July, we actually had to move our lunch program upstairs to an entirely different room temporarily while the book sale was taking place. 
If you look at the picture, the top one is our auditorium, which has a lot of space.  The second one is our secondary conference room.  And so, when we moved there, we literally moved from a space that was quadruple the size down to a smaller space.  
We had to really adjust how we ran the program.  I kind of called it a restaurant-style seating, so I acted as a host during lunch.  If the room was full, I would take people's names.  I would say, okay, you're welcome to look at other resources in the library, check out books downstairs.  You're on the list when the next person leaves.  I'll let somebody else in.  We kind of had to do that just because we had a change and constraint.  
For our overall attendance, we had about 5,000 people come in. 
That was also including parents.
As Patrice mentioned, not all food vendors will allow adults obviously because the funding is for caregivers, parents, grandparents, whoever is taking the child in with them for a small nominal fee of $3.  We've been able to carry that out with all of our lunch sites.  All of the food vendors have been completely on board with that and completely agree with it.  
It's been very popular for the parents because they don't feel like they have to bring anything with them.  They get really excited because they get to eat with them and enjoy the activities with them.  
Our first year, we also did not have a schedule.  We didn't have a lot of scheduled programming. 
As I have on the slide here, I said there was 14 scheduled programming events.  Those were all last-minute additions.  We scheduled them all in July, so the second month of summer reading.  It was something that really the families that were regularly attending the lunch at the library program were seeing.
Most families we didn't really advertise to outside of the program because it was such an initial -- we're feeling this out.  Don't know what we're doing.  Our focus was how many people do we need to open up every day and how many people do we need to clean up and stuff like that.  We didn't have a lot of volunteers.  It was just us. 
That was our first year.  
We found out in the first year that it was very, very popular, so we were really excited about the second year because we had several months prep time.  Our second year in 2015 we had an increase in attendance.  We went from 5,000 up to 6700.  We were able to incorporate our branch's actual staff, so we went from two and a half, three people to five or six people.  We were able to rotate staff out from the actual branch, which did help.  But the thing that made the program successful outside of having staff was volunteer involvement.  Since we had more lead time, we were able to say to people, hey, come volunteer for this program.  We were able to direct them to the program.  
As was mentioned by Trish, it really is a volunteer effort by teens.  We've had kids ranging from about 12 up to 17 and 18.  
The teens, they volunteer once or twice.  They are hooked.  
They want to continue volunteering.  It's really, really amazing because as an adult who was pretty much exhausted after the first year I did it, I was kind of like, oh, you really want to clean tables and chairs?  They really did.  
They actually wanted to clean tables and chairs.  There was a lot of bonding that happened between the teens.  Every day they would come in.  They would clean all the tables.  They would prep them.  They would put napkins on the table.  They would put surveys out.  They would put any sort of materials out that we needed put out.  
Then they would help us clean up after.  Without them, it is a far more extensive program.  The teen program has been something that's been strong across all the branches.  
This year in 2015 we also focused on having some sort of programming for every single day that lunch is offered.  We knew that was a really ambitious undertaking, but we decided we'd try it and if it didn't work, it didn't work.  Every single day we offered something, even if it was something as simple as putting out coloring pages.  We would call it, father's Day craft.  We put out coloring pages that turned into cards.  
Something that we could put out and a staff person didn't have to monitor what they were doing, but they had something to do while they were at lunch.  That was super popular.  We have a stage right there.  We have them go up on the stage and do a whole bunch of different things.
We did kid Zumba and things to get them involved.  We did story times.  Then we also had -- 
since we also had that lead time this time around, we were able to incorporate some of our paid programs during lunch.  Half of those occurred during lunch on the stage.  It is also very, very -- it's super popular.  
That was our second year.  We were really, really happy with it.  At that point, we decided we were ready to start expanding to some of our rural branches.  
Our third year, we added Arvin, which is in a farming community, and Frazier Park, which is in the mountain community.  Both are very small places and have much smaller branches, but we were lucky enough to have meeting rooms in both of those areas.  In Arvin, our challenge was we were able to convince our local district to work with us and they were very, very excited, but we had one challenge where they wanted to end early.  We found out the first week of lunch in June that they had wanted to end the first week of July instead of carrying out the program through the entirety of summer reading.  
That was a little bit of a challenge.  It was disappointing.  We had advertised it for being the full two months, so that was a little scary.  We reached out to our food vendor who did our main branch.  They offered to cover lunch all the way through the two months if the Arvin school district didn't.  After the first month though, the school district, when they saw how successful the program was, they were getting -- originally, they were holding lunch at their cafeteria there in the school district.  They were getting five, maybe eight people on a busy day.  With us having lunch at the library instead, we were getting 60 to 80 people a day.  
They were so excited to have that many people coming in and to be participating in all these enrichment activities and to actually be getting the community that needs these lunches to them.  They realized how wonderful of an impact it was, so the numbers spoke for themselves and Arvin decided to continue actually serving lunch through the rest of the month.  
We worked with them last year as well.  We anticipate working with them this year too.  
Frazier Park was a little bit different from our main branch. 
It started a little late.  It started a week to a week and a half later than our other two branches because their school let out later, so they weren't able to provide any sort of food beforehand because the kids were all in school.  That didn't affect the numbers in any way, shape, or form.  It was still very successful since a vast majority of those kids are actually in that same school district.  It made sense and it works really well and it is really popular.  As you can see on the top picture, that's Frazier Park right there.  They did a lot of programs where they would sit on the floor with picnic blankets.  Arvin and Frazier Park have outdoor areas, so they would go outdoors for a portion of their programs sometimes.  It just depended on what they were offering that day.  Actually, to point out the pictures, the top one is Frazier Park.  The middle one is Arvin, and then the last one is McFarland.  Last year, we added McFarland.  McFarland was probably the most unique situation we've worked with so far.  
McFarland has limited hours.  
It is only open on Wednesday through Friday, so we worked with the district to figure out some sort of compromise.  They do not have staff in that local area on Fridays, so we ended up offering lunch there at McFarland on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  They also wanted it to be limited because they felt that there would be competition because that school district is actually located directly across the street from the library branch.  And so, that school district already serves lunch.  
When worked with them and said, hey, let's serve lunch at McFarland branch, they didn't want to pull their lunch site from across the street.  We anticipated that a lot of the kids that were going to come to the library were possibly going to go across the street.  We found out that that wasn't the case.  Still the enrichment programs, the programming that we're offering -- as I said, we encourage our staff to offer something every single day at lunch.  If it can't be done during lunch because of staffing, then immediately before and immediately after.  
Because of all the programming and enrichment opportunities, they were having maybe a couple people across the street while we were having around 30 to 50 depending on the day.  Once again, we were able to show the district that when programming and enrichment opportunities are offered and when it is happening at the library, there is such a strong involvement.  That's become really a part of -- as we were talking about kind of what I say is our sales pitch for the program, we kind of pitch it to the district and explain, this is what we can do for you, if you can come and bring food, because we can make sure the kids are being enriched during this entire time frame.  All of our locations also offer adults prices.  Our total attendance at that point was about 10,856.  
Highlights of our program.  
Something that came about last year was our guest reader series.  This was a partnership between multiple departments and multiple county leaders.  We had over 20 different people come in and read during lunch on the stage, so kids would be coming in and out.  At the same time, story time was happening with somebody that was really important in the community, like a supervisor in our county board of supervisors or a head of a department.  This really gave an opportunity for the kids to connect with county leaders and also for the parents to see the county leaders or important people in the community in person and to just kind of see everybody involved and make that connection.  The story times were incredibly popular.  We only did them for about three weeks.  It was a last-minute effort.  It was so popular that this year we plan to do it the entire two months.  
Last year, we partnered with a student who was doing his dissertation.  He did a head to toes workshop, which was a nutritional day camp on being and eating healthy.  We kind of did a really wonderful feed-in for him.  A lot of day camps or child care will come and visit, lunch, eat, and then go back to their site.  We also do something called doodles on the table art where we take paper and we completely cover the tables and let them draw all over them during lunch, which is really fun and one of the easiest clean-up methods ever.  
We do passive crafts.  Anything we can put materials out and they can do on their own without a lot of instruction.  
Partnerships are super important.  
When we go and commit ourselves to doing a program every single day, if we have somebody come out and do a presentation every day or they do an activity, that ends up being part of the enrichment activities and connecting everybody.  We were really excited to get featured in "The New York Times."  That article is somewhere in the deep web.  
Learning experiences.  Surveys. 
We wanted to offer surveys to our sites and get all of the information from the people that were attending, but we knew immediately, especially the first year, that with only two full-time staff and one part-time staff member we would not be able to kind of really focus on it, so what we ended up doing is we printed them out.  
This is a screenshot of what it looks like printed out on really bright yellow paper half sheets.
We would set 3 to 5, sometimes 10, sheets on paper on a table. 
We do not tell people to fill them out.  We just put them there.  We get hundreds of surveys by the end of the program.  We've had a wonderful amount of parents answering the surveys and children.  That's really turned out to be one of the easiest things -- we thought that would be one of the hardest things to deal with is get this information.  We also do cross promoted publicitypublicity.  Our first year, we did a completely separate flier for lunch.  
Explaining how lunch worked from the federal funding aspect, as I said earlier, turned parents off because they thought it was only for certain -- they felt it was only for a certain income bracket and they could be taking away from others.  You're handing the staff the fliers.  
We tie it in with all of our other advertising, and we tie it in as a component of summer reading.  We have lunch at the library that's happening at the same time.  These are the events that are occurring.  That worked super well.  
Other learning experiences.  We have to create the strigs for the food vendors.  They don't understand exactly how we're going to do because they're thinking libraries are only for reading and that's it.  That's what you're painting the picture for the public.  We go and we explain, hey, this is how it will work.  Our staff will clean it up.  Our staff will set it up.  We'll offer programs.  This will happen.  All you need to do is send your staff member in to bring your ready-made food in and serve it and follow whatever regulations we need to follow.  
We have to do it in a sales pitch format and explain if you're getting only two people with your programming, we likely can get 30 in a rural area.  
There are a lot of rules and regulations for the food.  You can't share between plates.  You can't take it out of the food space, things like that.  It's good to be aware of the regulations, but at the end of the day we're not going to be the food police.  I don't go and harp on it because if they're not making a big mess and stealing a bunch of food, it is not that big of a deal.  We allow the food vendors to be the stricter person in these situations, and we just sort of try to be cognizant of the rules, but also not be the food police.  
Importance of teen volunteers and interns, we get a regular intern every year who helps with this, but teens in general, they may not want to come in and sit and just eat, but if you tell them help me out with this program, help, it will make a big difference and get lunch, for some reason, that makes a really big difference to them.  
That community of teen volunteers is a big one every year for us, and it is at all of our branches.  Arvin was one of our branches that was rural that was very reliant on teen volunteers.  They would go outside of the branch and tell people, hey, come in for lunch when they were coming home from summer school.  Ff -- greeters are really helpful to talk to people when they're passing by. 
Having someone switch out trash bags during the program.  We provide napkins.  We put one on each table.  We provide water jugs because all of our sites only provide milk.  People really just want water, so we fill up a water jug, put out cups.  It is really easy and simple.  At the Beale branch, they advertise on Craigslist in the free section, which we thought was the funniest thing, but a lot of people have heard about us from Craigslist.  We also have a put back table where people don't want to eat their stuff.  Let's say they have some carrots and they don't want to eat it.  They can put it on the put back table.  If there are kids that want seconds, you can tell them, hey, you can take anything from here.  We working to introduce at least one site a year.  It is scary and it is a lot of work the first time.  But within a week to two weeks at the most, it gets easy and it becomes routine and it is not hard.  I have done it hands-on for four years, and it is not hard.  The connections you make, the involvement of the community, the teens, the kids, is really wonderful and the parents are so happy.  It's only hard because you don't know what to anticipate.  But once you know what to anticipate, it is not hard.  Don't let your fears overpower you.  
>> That is fantastic.  Your expertise and enthusiasm is infectious.  There was one quick clarification.  You mentioned the food vendors at the beginning of this slide.  Did the food vendors stay on site to help serve?  
>> Jasmin: For all of our locations, our vendors have.  
Our Beale location is our superintendent of schools and then all the three rural are the local school districts.  They have sent one staff person.  
When we first started, we anticipated that the large branch at Beale would have multiple staff, but they did not have staff either to send, so we only had one person per.  They stay the entire time until they run out of lunch.  We have had teen volunteers help them when they're overrun.  
>> Okay.  Good to clarify that. 
Wow, fantastic.  There weren't a whole lot of questions.  I hope people realize there are a wealth of resources on the lunch at the library site.  
Jasmin, there was a request if you would be willing to share the example as a document of your survey and that marketing piece that you had on that slide.  People love to see these examples.  If you can find them, I can post them on the event page so we have those there.  
All of these fine presenters have offered their e-mails here.
I encourage you to follow up with other outstanding questions, but there are so many great resources on the lunch at the library site.  Also a reminder that the learner guide that was created for today's event leads you through some of the initial steps and will get you on track for those questions you need to explore further as a team.  
Thank you so much to all three of you, to everyone who has joined us, to our captioner.  
I'm going to go ahead and wrap up today's session.  We look forward to hearing what all of you are doing somewhere else down the road here soon.  Thank you so much.