Submitted by Amy Szvetecz
One of our favorite annual events here at Post Road is our Spring Break Touch a Truck. This event began back in 2014, a few months after Post Road opened. We had several police vehicles, a fire truck, a Sawnee EMC bucket truck, and Kona Ice in one small row in the parking lot. We also had crafts in the Meeting Room and some sand boxes and outdoor play stations. Despite our small offerings, we had 499 people attend.
The event got bigger every year, with more vehicles and more crowds. Unfortunately parking became a big problem, with people having to park across the street at Midway Park. The Sheriff’s office helped by posting an officer to direct traffic so people could safely cross Post Road, but it became clear that the event had outgrown our space.
Starting in 2022, we partnered with Parks and Rec and began hosting the event at Fowler Park. The space was perfect and allowed us to host more amazing trucks and offer safer parking options for our patrons.
Fast forward to 2024. Our April 5 event was the biggest and best of all! Tina Pearson, Youth Specialist Extraordinaire, planned the event, and she did an amazing job! Over 1,500 people attended. And she worked hard to bring exciting new vehicles to join in the fun. Albion Construction, the builders of Denmark Library, brought some Vertical Earth construction vehicles. Now that’s a great partnership!
One of the most exciting new vehicles for us was the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile (special thanks to former Youth Specialist Shannan Wade who first contacted them for last year’s event, which they could not attend). The Wienermobile driver said our event was the best Touch a Truck he had ever been to and he wants to come back next year!
Special thanks to the following people:
Leslie Marinelli for creating professionally printed directional signage, and for all her efforts to promote this event, including coming to the event itself and broadcasting it on Facebook Live.
Our fabulous Bookmobile staff who came with Loanie and parked front and center to promote that this was a library event.
Brooke Richards and Erin Palmer for assisting at the event.
Anna Lyle and Ann Decherd who came to support us at the event.
We can’t wait to make our 2025 event even bigger and better!
That's awesome!!
ReplyDeleteI love that our Spring Break programming provides delightful destinations to families on staycations. Thank you to Tina and past coordinators for this special event.
ReplyDeleteThe pictures from the event say it all! Thanks for providing the history, Amy.
ReplyDelete