Celebrate Pico Branch Library’s 5th Birthday in Outer Space at the Annual Arts & Literacy Festival
April 17, 2019 9:05 AM
SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Santa Monica’s Annual Arts & Literacy Festival is right around the corner and out of this world with the theme “Outer Space”. This year the festival will celebrate Pico Branch Library’s 5th birthday on Saturday, April 27, 2019, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Virginia Avenue Park (2200 Virginia Avenue, Santa Monica, CA).
This free, family-friendly festival will showcase activities, live performances, an active zone, family-friendly activities hosted by community organizations, cooking demonstration and Sky Dome’s Inflatable Planetarium along with broadcasts of NASA’s Story Time from Space.
Event goers will also have a chance to meet Mayor Gleam Davis for the April edition of Let’s Read with Gleam. This free monthly reading series ties into the importance of literacy and learning, which lays the groundwork for a Sustainable City of Wellbeing. Mayor Davis will share some of her favorite children’s books on stage during a family story time beginning at 12:50 p.m.
In addition, more than 25 different Santa Monica agencies will offer Outer Space themed games, Farmers Market cooking demonstrations, creating astronaut helmets with reDiscover Center, Moonwalk through Wellness Way, Santa Monica Police Department’s Astronaut Training Camp and other activities promoting the kindergarten readiness campaign. Children will fill out an Explorer Card to receive a free book from the Santa Monica Public Library.
The festival promotes the Santa Monica Cradle to Career Building Blocks for Kindergarten Campaign, which helps parents, educators, early childcare providers, and other community partners work together to make sure all Santa Monica children start kindergarten ready to learn, inside and outside the classroom. The campaign launched in 2015 in response to findings from the Youth Wellbeing Report Card that showed only 61 percent of Santa Monica public school children are on track when they begin kindergarten. For more information about the Santa Monica Cradle to Career Building Blocks to Kindergarten campaign, visitsantamonicacradletocareer.org/kindergarten.
For information about Virginia Avenue Park, visit smgov.net/vapark. For more information about this event, please visit the event page on Facebook.
Media Contact
Miranda Iglesias
Public Information Coordinator
Miranda.Iglesias@SMGOV.NET