Intergenerational

Cereal Party

Jan 28, 2025

$51-100

Byline

Alexis Adrianse, Programming Librarian, Dorr (Mich.) Township Library

An evening of cereal delights, where you can customize your own bowl at a cereal bar, get crafty with cereal-themed crafts and maybe even challenge your friends to a cereal-themed game or two.

Advanced Planning

Advanced planning included deciding what events we wanted to have at the party. Ultimately, we went with a cereal bar for people to snack on, three cereal crafts, and two cereal-themed games. We had to gather enough supplies and make some samples before the event.

Marketing

We market primarily through Facebook, but we also included it in our newsletter and website calendar of events.

Budgeting

Our cereal bar had six boxes of cereal ($3 to $4) and two big bags of cereal ($5 to $6).

The cereal necklaces/bracelets were made using three big bags of off-brand Fruit Loops, which cost $4-5 a bag, and we already had the stretchy cord.

The sand art cereal craft used three big bags of off-brand Trix/Captain Crunch at $4-5 each. Any colorful cereal will work. The bottles were donated to us.

The paper plate aquarium craft used three big bags of off-brand Crunch Berries (any colorful, round cereal will work), which cost $4-5 a bag. The blue paper plates were $1.25 a pack at the dollar store.

We also needed two boxes of cereal for the chess game (we had the board already) and one big bag for the Minute to Win It game. We had the bowls and chopsticks already.

Day-of-event Activity

We set up the library in stations. Crafts were held in the community room, while the games were in the main library. The cereal bar was placed in the lobby. We made sure everything was at its correct station and included printed instructions.

Program Execution

A coworker and I moved around from room to room for assistance and to keep an eye on everything to ensure the event ran smoothly. I also made sure to hover near the cereal bar in case little hands needed help pouring milk, but parents were really good about keeping an eye on them.

All in all, it was a great program. The community had a blast with it, and one dad was even so excited that he brought his own travel cereal cup!