Teen Volunteer, Amelia Smith wins North Carolina Public Library’s Friend of the Year Award
Pictured from left to right - Melanie Morgan, Director of Libraries; Amelia Smith, Volunteer and NCPLDA Friend of the Year Winner; Varin Worthington, Head of Youth Services.
By Monique Sumner
Neuse Regional Libraries are excited to announce that Amelia Smith, a sophomore at Lenoir County Early College High School, won the North Carolina Public Library Director’s Association (NCPLDA) Friend of Year Award. Amelia truly deserves this statewide recognition as she consistently dem
nstrates her dedication to the Library as one of our most enthusiastic Teen Library Volunteers. Varin Worthington, the Head of Youth Services, and Melanie Morgan, the Director of Neuse Regional Libraries, had the honor of presenting the award to Amelia on Thursday, December 1, 2023, at the NCPLDA Award Banquet held in Winston-Salem.
As a committed volunteer, Amelia serves as a Teen Volunteer Tutor who provides homework help and serves as a Reading Buddy for one-on-one shared reading with local students. She also assists with setting up after-school STEM Library programs and assists with Library outreach events. Amelia is welcoming and friendly to all. She encourages other teens to come to the Library and participate in teen programs and often informally recruits new volunteers for the Teen Volunteer program. Amelia understands the impact volunteering has on her local library and its connection to the overall community.
Amelia is also an advocate for the Library, writing not one but two Neuse News articles promoting teen library programs, hoping to connect with unreached teens. She also promoted our first teen volunteer service project, a pet food drive for the Lenoir County SPCA, by sharing flyers and word-of-mouth marketing. Monique Sumner, the Teen Librarian at the Kinston-Lenoir County Public Library, shares, “Amelia consistently enhances the library environment with a passion for her library community making it a more welcoming place.”
If interested in becoming a volunteer at one of the Neuse Regional Libraries, please visit the NRL website https://www.neuselibrary.org/teen-volunteer-application/ and complete an application today! For more information about the Teen Volunteer program please contact Monique Sumner at msumner@neuselibrary.org or at (252) 527-7066 ext. 133.
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