We’d like to share with you how the Friends of the Hibbing Public Library adapted the ALS Scavenger Hunts for their own, very active, program!
We used the Musical Instruments, Paul Bunyan, Pets, and Moo story time kits and wrote clues related to each picture from the kits, directing participants to find the picture, along with a question to answer. This PDF contains the typed clues and questions, along with hand written notes for staff and volunteers, to direct patrons to the right spot in the library to find the picture. All pictures were inside the library but in all sections of the library – not just the children’s side! The image above gives an example of how we “hid” the pictures; They were secured in place with tape, near the books that the clue hinted at.
We stapled the clues to a paper with pictures of the item from kits and handed them out randomly to keep people spread out around the library. When they finished one, each person on the team put their name on a paper to be entered into our drawings, and they were given another hunt. 156 scavenger hunts were passed out and as time ran out, those that had attempted their final hunt still got their names in for another chance at the drawing.
We had people work as teams – generally families including dads and kids, grandma’s and kids, a even a couple groups of upper elementary boys!
At the end of the hour or when they finished all four scavenger hunts, everyone went to the auditorium for fruit snacks, McDonald’s juice and our drawings.
We promoted it as an hour of scavenger hunting followed by drawings and treats. We didn’t say what any of the items in the drawings would be, but we still had over 140 people stay for that part. But they were out the door as soon as I finished saying the last drawing winner name!
We planned to have them get a bookmark (included in some of the scavenger hunts) when they finished each hunt. But it was too busy to do that, so having those downstairs with the treats would have worked better.
The Friends kicked in money for prizes and members of the friends each donated about $30 in prizes ranging from items from the sale area in Target to RedBox rentals, Amazon cards, Subway and Dairy Queen cards so we probably had about 40 items. As we drew names, we let people come and pick a prize off the table until they were all gone.
It was probably one of the loudest hours in the library but everyone seemed to have a good time and most were able to find the clues on their own or with a few hints from library staff and volunteers.
