Library staff preview winter programs, VITA tax help and Black History Month activities

Library staff summarized programs and services for early winter and February, including weekly story times, a winter reading challenge, new monthly art club activities and a sensory play date for young children.

Miss Charters, speaking for the library, said story times will resume Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:15 a.m., and the library will host a sensory play date Friday, Jan. 31. The library's winter reading challenge runs Jan. 2'Feb. 2; patrons who meet their self-set goal for 10 days may redeem a book at the circulation desk.

Charters said the library will run a pop-up art event and a new art-club registration beginning Monday, Feb. 3. Teen and adult programs include a cottage-core terrarium craft night and a revival of the VITA tax-assistance program provided by United Way of Denton County; VITA sessions will be on-site Tuesdays from Jan. 28 through April 15, with appointments taken on a first-come, first-served basis between 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. each Tuesday. Charters noted the VITA program is income-based and not available to households with adjusted gross income above $67,000.

The library will host a family-friendly Black History Month celebration at the senior center featuring local Black-owned businesses, a presentation on Buffalo Soldiers from Texas Parks and Wildlife, a fashion show, a vendor fair and a drum-circle workshop on Saturday, Feb. 8.

Charters also described recurring services: monthly legal aid from Legal Aid of North Texas, a Medicare education seminar on the second Saturday of each month and an education partnership to place books donated by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

No formal council action was requested; the presentation was informational.