Library Showcase |
Want to see your library in the Showcase? Click here to find out how! |
Lee County Library System
Lee County, FL
The Lee County Library System (LCLS) knew that their biggest challenge would be to find creative ways to market their Fit for Life programs to teens in their communities. In their efforts to get teens active and keep them informed about their own health they knew they had the support of parents and other adults. Still, they were aware that that wouldn’t be enough to get teens excited about the myriad of health and wellness programs to be offered. If they were going to grab teens’ attention and keep them interested, they were going to have to use new and innovative marketing techniques. Lucky, many of LCLS’s community partners had experience in marketing to teens and were very willing to share their knowledge. In addition, the library made use of some great resources that they already had, their Teen Advisory Groups, which they used as “sounding boards” on their marketing strategies and programming plans. They made a point of listening to the teens – their ideas, their likes and dislikes, and their interests – and found that in the end, teens are “hungry” for programs that channel their physical energy and educate them about nutrition. Having successfully gotten the word out with packs of gum with the FFL program schedules printed inside, LCLS’s health fairs were a huge success with a total of 305 teens attending and many asking, “What is next?” This was a great lead into the LCLS summer “Teens Read & Win – Fit for Life” events, which included a variety of fitness related activities such as Belly Dancing, DDR, Hip Hop dancing, Extreme Hopscotch, Juggling, Tai Chi and Capoeira. Summer programs took place at all 12 of the Lee County Library System’s branches, with a total of 833 individual participants and 74 programs with 1,599 attending. As the pictures show, teens in Lee County have been psyched to sport the FFL tee shirts and knapsacks given to them by LCLS, which were imprinted with colors they would wear: black and bright green. In order to increase the response rate, the library also gave silver pedometers with “Fit for Life” imprinted on them to every teens who returned a survey at a health fair. In this way, the library distributed a great product to promote healthy behavior in teens, while guaranteeing that their future health programming would be as responsive to the needs and interests of teens in Lee County as possible. |
Brittany Kociuba sports her new
Teens participate in a Phams Tae Kwon Do presentation at the Library
|
To read about more successful Get Real, Get Fit! and Fit for Life programs, visit the Library Showcase Archives by clicking here!
|
