From face painting to free book giveaways, the flow of creative events at the Carmel Valley Library may seem limitless. However, behind the scenes lies a greater sphere of diligent work, collaboration and creativity. Working in direct coordination with the library, the Teen Advisory Board (TAB) of the Carmel Valley Library meets once a month to plan upcoming activities tailored for young children in the community. Composed of a student-led coalition of high school volunteers, TAB involves teen voices in planning various events with crafts and activities centered around different themes such as Candy Land or Halloween. Most recently, TAB assisted in the Free Comic Book Day event held last Saturday.

“As the Teen Advisory Board, we try to come together, as teenagers, [with] a youth perspective [on] how we can make the library still fun, engaging and relevant in how modern our society is now and how prevalent social media is,” TAB president Baylin Tsai (11) said. 

In the past, TAB has led crafts such as rocket slingshots for Space Day and unicorn gliders for Magical Creatures Day. Most events take place on Wednesdays or weekends.

“[The goal] is for kids to have fun and connect with others in the community and people around them,” TAB volunteer Verdad West (11) said. “I think it’s meaningful that teens from the community are doing things like that.”

Carmel Valley Library Youth Services Librarian Lea Hernandez has worked with TAB since September and discusses the importance of TAB volunteers for running major events at the library.

“Sometimes, you only have 30 people come, and then other times you have 200,” Hernandez said. “So for the bigger events, like Halloween or the winter holidays, those are the ones that have a lot of people [and need] more volunteers.” 

When events get busier, having extra hands to help with “planning and execution of the event” becomes invaluable, according to Hernandez.

“Being there to help us run the events is so helpful, … especially when we have programs that have multiple stations [as] we have limited staff to be able to run those [stations],” Hernandez said. “Sometimes it’s just one staff member in the event and … because we’ll have so many participants, …we need as many [volunteers] as we can get.”

Another area TAB focuses on is adjusting and improving activities to maximize engagement with participants. 

“[Sometimes] the age range of the kids who come can vary a lot … and sometimes the craft doesn’t work as well as we hoped but then it’s fine because we learned, [so] in the future we’ll do it differently,” West said.

This can-do attitude extends to new efforts that TAB is aiming for, including the expansion of teen programs and the recent institution of subgroups to streamline organization. 

“There’s an outreach group that focuses on updating social media and an event and project management group, which … organizes events, and … find[s] the costs for materials,” West said. “There’s also a magazine design group … [because] we want to create this little magazine newsletter for kids with activities they could take.”

Within TAB, many members gain beneficial experiences by collaborating with other volunteers and taking an active role in the organization and implementation of events. They learn “leadership skills” and how to be able to “express their opinion” on positive changes for programs.

“They can gain lots of social skills because they have to interact with the kids and the parents at the events,” Hernandez said.

Above all, TAB members “are helping ensure that the kids … have a good time,” which is “really important” for the library, according to Hernandez. Throughout this process, coordination is key.

“We’re communicating with the library staff, and especially with children too, because during the actual activities and events, we’re working with them directly and … making sure that they have a great time,” Tsai said.

Tsai and West’s favorite TAB memory is the volunteer appreciation party, in which local businesses in the community donate snacks, gift cards and prizes to the library that are raffled off to TAB members. Volunteers are able to socialize and celebrate their hard work, driving connection. 

“We really appreciate everything they do for the library, whether it’s helping us come up with ideas or prepping materials,” Hernandez said. “Their help at the events is really amazing for the staff and for the community as well.”