Thetford community nurse Cindy Grigel faces the camera and begins to talk to children she cannot see.
“I hope that you learn something from this and I hope that you feel a little more comfortable talking about the coronavirus with grownups and your friends,” she says, before starting to read from Coronavirus: A Book for Children authored by Elizabeth Jenner, Kate Wilson and Nia Roberts and illustrated by Axel Scheffler.
Grigel’s reading is just one of many in a project for Thetford libraries, which like many libraries throughout the Upper Valley have sought ways to connect with patrons during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last week, the town libraries — which include Latham Memorial Library in Thetford and Peabody Library in Post Mills — launched Thetford Heroes Read! in honor of National Library Week, which concluded Saturday. One of a number of programs hosted via Zoom videoconferencing, Heroes Read! proved so popular that library officials hope to continue it beyond National Library Week.
“Because of our stay-at-home order, kids are stuck at home. So what can we as a library do to help families entertain their children?” said Hedi Parafina, trustee at Latham Memorial Library.
Children’s librarian Emily Zollo had success hosting story times over Zoom, so the board thought about ways they could build on that.
“She had noticed it was fairly well-attended,” Parafina said.
So library staff reached out to members of the community working essential jobs to see if they’d be interested in connecting to children by reading a story of their choice. The videos are being shared via the town Listserv and the “Thetford Libraries” Facebook page.
The result was videos featuring people in Thetford who work essential jobs, including Grigel, Town Clerk and Treasurer Tracy Borst, emergency management director Mariah Whitcomb, and Selectboard member Steven Tofel.
“We have a lot of local folks who wanted to do this and hopefully we’ll be able to expand this program,” Parafina said.
The library has also hosted Zoom events for families, including an open mic night earlier this month which nearly 30 people attended, though not all performed.
“That was an amazing way of bringing people together even though we’re looking at this gallery on a screen,” Parafina said. “Part of our service is to do programming for children and adults. You can adapt to this new way of doing things.”
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
