BACKGROUND:
This LSTA grant is awarded by the State of California as a part of the Eureka! Leadership Institute, a fellowship program for developing 32 emerging library leaders each year from libraries throughout the state. The following project was developed by one Eureka! Fellow from the Contra Costa County Library – the Children’s Librarian at the Pleasant Hill Community Library – as the culminating application of newly developed leadership skills to meet community needs.
Over 4 months this Spring and Summer, children will be encouraged to submit their ideas to a collection contraption in the library called the “Idea Box.” These ideas will ultimately inspire a series of projects in and around the library for improving the quality of life in our community.
The collected ideas will be published and celebrated online, where the whole community can view and vote on them. Finally, children and parents, educators, local businesses, and other citizens will work together to bring some of these ideas to life – one per month from May through September.
The Idea Box will improve our community in three vital ways:
Firstly, it engages youth in a process of ideation, challenging them to tap their creative capital to identify paths to independent learning and community improvement. Secondly, the Idea Box empowers youth to recognize the value of their imaginations, and highlights that value to the larger community. Lastly, the Idea Box directly improves the community by implementing the ideas collected from youth, and bringing diverse residents together to realize those ideas in tangible projects.
CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:
The library will not implement the proposal.
CHILDREN'S IMPACT STATEMENT:
The Idea Box casts youth as visionary influencers in their own lives and the lives of others, thereby supporting the outcome established in the Children’s Report Card: Children and Youth Healthy and Preparing for Productive Adulthood. By bringing their ideas to the box and working with others to bring those ideas to life, child participants will recognize the value of their imaginations and their power to act on them as contributing members of our community.
The Idea Box also supports the outcome Children Ready for and Succeeding in School by motivating children through engaging activities that connect the world of ideas to real-world results. Children’s academic success is dependent on their self-confidence and ability to think creatively, both of which are boosted by experiences we create with the Idea Box.