Scholarship

Reflective Essay:

For my whole life I have been going to the Franklin Avenue Library. It has impacted me in so many ways, and I will always be grateful for it. I have been homeschooled since kindergarten, and because of that we relied on the library heavily for any books we needed. When I was young, my brothers and I loved to go to the library. Every week, our mom would take us to the library to get a giant stack of books. Half of them would be over various topics that we were interested in learning such as art, science, and crafts. These books would help us with our homeschooling and allowed us to take the time to learn about anything we wanted to in great detail. The other half of the books would be any book that we simply found interesting. I remember lying on our couch and reading Percy Jackson, the latest volume of One Piece, or just any book that we had brought home that looked fun to read. Every couple of weeks there would be another series that intrigued me, and I would spend the next couple of days almost exclusively reading it. The library taught me that reading could be both fun and educational.

The Franklin Library has even impacted my life beyond books. We used to go to so many of the events that they held, from bingo to Star Wars Day. I particularly loved going to the Pokémon Card Swap events from the day they started hosting them so many years ago. I have so many memories from going to nearly every single one of those events for a couple of years. I remember so much, such as learning about cool new cards and figuring out how to spot fake ones. I remember winning raffles, branching out to trading Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and even the day when somebody stole some of my cards. I was sad of course, but Jen and the other librarians have always been so kind and helpful that I did not feel too bad. A couple of years later I started volunteering for library events which definitely helped me interact with other people and engage with my community. Volunteering for and participating in the summer ready program kept me interested in reading and gave me valuable experience in talking to and assisting others. The Franklin Avenue Library has not only let me have a lot of fun, but it has also both improved my education and taught me important social skills, and I will always be grateful for it.