THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 14, 1996 TAG: 9608130139
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 73 lines
To library staffers, Debbie Wolcott is the supervisor of outreach services. To youngsters who visit the Bookmobile, she's the lady in the funny T-shirt who recommends books, tells fun stories and drives the great big van.
For 14 hours, starting at 6 p.m. Saturday, she was something else to a super-charged pack of more than 30 youngsters who burst through the doors of the Central Library carrying toothbrushes and bed rolls.
At least some of them were carrying toothbrushes.
The event was a library sleep-over for youngsters from across the city, many of whom came from what are known as ``target neighborhoods.'' Those are subdivisions where youngsters can make good use of extra role models and special programs to help them make their way to productive adulthood.
The plan to turn the mammoth Central Library into the site for a slumber party of mind-boggling proportions was Wolcott's brainchild.
``A couple of years ago I began asking myself, `How can the library really contribute to these children?' '' she explained. ``Then I researched sleep-overs which had been done in other parts of the country and decided that was just the thing we needed.''
With funding by the Friends of the Public Library and help from staff volunteers, Wolcott organized a party for 40 youngsters that first year.
It was a rousing success, with the emphasis on the word rousing. A person who isn't easily intimidated, she organized another for this summer.
Between supper (donated by a chicken chain), munch break (donated by a bakery) and breakfast (donated by doughnut and bagel shops), the youngsters did the limbo, decorated sun visors, watched a puppet show and listened to stories. They also attacked the stacks with a vengeance in search of material for a scavenger hunt.
A little after 9 p.m., Veronica Robinson and Keeywania Bea, both 14, plopped themselves down in front of a microfilm reader and searched back issues of The Virginian-Pilot to find out what was happening on the days they were born.
Next to them, Bayside High 10th-grader Tyson Nobles, an honor student and no stranger to the wonders of libraries, found his birth date in The New York Times.
``December 20, 1900,'' he announced.
``Get outta here, you were not born in 1900,'' Bea said, shaking her head.
``Of course not,'' Nobles told her with just a note of superiority in his voice. ``But I was born on Dec. 20. I just wanted to find out what happened on that day before I was born.''
Robinson and Bea shook their heads, giggled and returned to their own shared research. They had stopped at the microfilm reader as they made their way through the periodical section - scavenger list in hand - counting copiers, searching for a black and white whale and determining the location of a Shaquille O'Neal poster.
By 10:30 the youngsters, ranging in age from 7 to 14, had regrouped in the meeting room for a late night snack. While some of the smaller ones were already nodding off, 13-year-olds Shaunte Chacon and Saysha Eaves helped themselves to books off a well-stocked cart, laid out their bed rolls and settled down for some bedtime reading.
For the kids, it was a decidedly social evening.
For Wolcott, it was a fun route to what educators call a teachable moment, that point at which imparting knowledge is both natural and painless.
``This is a wonderful way for kids to become acquainted with the library,'' she said as she rolled out her own Beauty and the Beast sleeping bag.
By midnight the lights would be dimmed, the giggles muffled. By 8 a.m. Sunday the youngsters would gather up their bed rolls and decorated eye shades. Clutching bags filled with donated goodies, they would board the bus for home. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
AT LEFT: Tyson Nobles looks up his birth date in the New York Times.
AT RIGHT: Shaunte Chacon, left, and Saysha Eaves do some bedtime
reading. by CNB