‘Get in the Game’ with Hamburg School District’s upcoming Family Reading Night, 6:30 to 9 p.m. Friday, April 8.
The Hamburg Middle School tradition started in 2005, and more recently expanded to include the entire district, will be full of fun activities for kids of every age, and their families as well.
Librarians from every school in the district and community worked together to make an enjoyable event, starting off with guest speaker Tim Green.
Megan Moelbert, Hamburg Middle School libararian and founder of Family Reading Night, was very excited when she learned they landed Green as their guest speaker: “He’s an author, he’s out of Syracuse, he was an Atlanta Falcon, he’s a lawyer, he’s a writer, he’s a coach, he’s a dad and a husband, and he’s amazing…I’ve heard him before, he’s very inspirational and the kids just love him.”
Green will speak to the Hamburg community in the middle school auditorium for 45 minutes, signing books and being central to the event’s big prize for whoever wins the locker decorating contest, where students got to fashion their locker after the spine of their favorite book.
“Prizes will be books by Tim Green…he offered to do a ‘back-stage pass’ kind of thing, he said he’d come early and sit with anybody, any kid, and do a Q & A with them, photo shots with him, we can cord off the front row of the auditorium, they can be the first in line for his autograph…so we got a few awesome prize options, thanks to him,” said Moelbert.
The second part of the night will be a series of mini-activities for everyone to participate in, going on in many classrooms on the second floor of the middle school.
There will of course be the annual book swap, where kids can bring in a used book and trade it in for something else, or 50 cents for a book of their choice. Proceeds will benefit the Museum of disABILITY History, which has a connection to author Stephen Nawotniak, who will be presenting on his children’s book “Mubu the Morph.”
A Robotics Maker Space, provided by the Hamburg Library, Computer Coding, a Poetry Slam and Media Scavenger Hunt will be among the many games and literacy-based activities to check out during the second part of the event.
“Choices for them that are literacy-based for the most part, fun, interactive, hands-on…we did try to have a few that are geared for elementary and a few that are geared for secondary but most are for everybody,” added Moelbert.
Guests will be entered in to win door prizes like passes to the Albright Knox and tickets to see the UB Bulls when they walk in; a lot of the prizes will be sports-based to fit in with the theme of ‘Get in the Game: Read,’ thanks to the event’s guest speaker.
For Moelbert, it’s all about getting the community out for a night of fun to benefit a good cause, and maybe inspiring some young minds too. “Connecting with literacy, connecting families, and then just having a community event. With this one, I think Tim Green is going to be a huge component of the awe and inspiration, and some kids will come out of here and…they’ll want to be him, they’ll want to be an NFL player or they’ll want to be a writer, or a lawyer,” she added.
The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided by Hamburg’s PTSA.
Matthew Ondesko, The Sun Reporter