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In spite of soaring temperatures, the Summer Reading Carnival hosted by the Coffee County Manchester Public Library welcomed hundreds of families that participated in the library’s annual Summer Reading program Wednesday, June 28.

The event featured carnival games, a bouncy house, blowup obstacle course, dunk tank and a host of free food and drinks at the former Southern Family Market parking lot.

“This is to reward the readers for a job well done,” Youth Services Librarian and Event Coordinator, Daphanie Gragg said during the event.

The summer reading program, which officially kicked off May 31, invites children of all ages to set their own reading goal for the summer, while enjoying a variety of fun events scheduled at the library located at 1005 Hillsboro Blvd. in Manchester.

Gragg said the number of participants increased from more than 400 children last year to more than 600 children this year.

“The last time I tallied the numbers we read over 115,000 minutes and over 900 books for the little babies,” she said. “We have 618 kids registered… I still have some to put in there might be a little bit more.”

Library Director Pauline Vaughn said the carnival tuned out exactly the way she hoped it would.

“This started as a small idea last year,” she said. “I was kind of half kidding around saying we needed to get a dunk tank and then it became, well let’s do a carnival and then Daphanie took it and ran with it and this is what I envisioned.”

“One little small idea morphed into this, we are so happy,” Vaughn added.

Gragg said the event would not have been possible without the support of the Manchester community.

“We received almost $17,000 in donations between prizes and money, it is about half and half,” Gragg said. 

That number is an $11,000 increase in donations over the previous year, she said.

“I worked all year long and the community has been really awesome,” Gragg said. “We were able to do free cotton candy, free hot dogs, free chips and free sodas. Coca Cola donated, Pepsi donated, Sam’s Club donated. Master of Ceremonies ended up comping all of our kid’s games so we were able to get the big obstacle course and other things from them as well.”

Valerie Lemmons said she enrolls her children in the library Summer Reading program every year.

“One, they needed something to do and two reading is good for them,” she said at the event. “My kids are English language learners and they needed the experience and they love to go to the library.”

Vaughn said she would like the community to know that all the money donated for the Summer Reading program has gone towards putting on the carnival and other events throughout the summer.

“We have pretty much spent everything that was donated and we are so appreciative, we couldn’t do this kind of stuff without the community supporting us,” Vaughn said.