Fairfield library hosts ‘When the Lights Go Out’

Courtesy of Alecs Mickunas, Fairfield Youth Services Librarian

On Friday, Oct. 30, Fairfield Public Library hosted the annual 'When the Lights Go Out” event. This year, for the first time, the event was held online using Zoom.

High school-age volunteers from Fairfield High School and Maharishi School, who are members of Interact Club, supported the event on-site as guides and Zoom online room monitors. Costumed storybook character performers and attendees Zoomed in from home to join the event.

Over 30 members of the community attended the event this year and each tour group had approximately 10 guests. Over the course of the hour-long event, children and other community members met with various storybook characters to solve a library mystery together. Attendees answered questions about the storybook characters at each storybook stations to encourage the characters to appear in their videos windows and interact with the guests.

After the event, library director Rebecca Johnson shared a history of When the Lights Go Out at Fairfield Public Library. She shared that she was inspired to begin hosting a When the Lights Go Out event in Fairfield after attending a similar event at her hometown library at the La Porte County Public Library in Indiana. The public library in Johnson's hometown has been hosting their event every year since 2011 but decided to cancel the event for this year due to COVID-19.

Fairfield Public Library staff learned so much from our foray into interactive online programming but look forward to a return to our traditional format next year. The library wishes to thank Fairfield Interact Club, Beth Alonso, Eva Schmidt, Afton Pedrick Hallauer as Pigeon, Rob Stephens as Clifford, Rayna Royer as Little Red Riding Hood, Enrique Baker as Paul Bunyan, Rachel Buse as the Wardrobe of Narnia, Amanda Choi as Dorothy, and Mark and Marisa Mickunas as Aunti Em and Uncle Henry.