A boy named Landon gets some help tie-dyeing a T-shirt during Creswell Library’s annual tie-dye Summer Reading Program activity. Gini Davis/The Creswell Chronicle
About 100 kids let their inner ”flower child” out to play during Creswell Library’s ever-popular tie-dye activity, held July 17 in Holt Park as part of the library’s 2019 Summer Reading Program.
Typically held in the library’s ”backyard,” the event was moved to Holt Park because the expansion project underway at the library meant that ”the backyard space is currently full of construction materials,” said Youth Librarian Nick Caum, thanking the City for providing access to water in the park.
In keeping with this year’s SRP theme, ”A Universe of Stories,” kids were invited to create some ”out of this world” designs as they tie-dyed the T-shirt, towel, handkerchief or other clean white item they’d brought from home.
A long line soon formed as kids waited to turn their creativity free at the tie-dyeing tables, but a machine kept restless youngsters entertained by cranking out a steady stream of delicate, floating bubbles. Rainbow-hued in the sun, the enchanting orbs enticed kids to run through them, catch them – or even, in the case of several young boys, try to eat them.
Before tie-dyeing, kids were aided in twisting and tying their white items, then supervised and assisted by parents or teen library volunteers as they chose among bottles of dye in every color of the rainbow and beyond. Squeezing their chosen colors onto their items, covering as much of the white as they wished, with as many colors as they wished, kids created wearable art ranging from the subtle to the psychedelic.
Noting some serendipitous perks to holding the event in Holt Park, ”we may just keep doing that in the future,” Caum said. ”It’s a much nicer atmosphere and allows people to connect with other wonderful programs in our community, like IRC Reading in the Park and lunches in the park, which both take place at noon, right when ours ends. Our goal has always been to link these programs together but having them in the same place makes it significantly easier.”
