Teens

Slide Night

Aug 4, 2025

$1-50

Byline

Libby Ortiz, Youth Services, Easton Area (Pa.) Public Library

Ready to take the spotlight? Join us for a PowerPoint Party, where you create and present a short, silly, or serious slideshow on any topic you’re passionate about—the weirder, the better! Whether you want to convince us why cats are superior, rank your favorite video games, or present an imaginary conspiracy theory, it’s all fair game. There is no pressure, just laughs, creativity, and good vibes. We’ll provide snacks, the screen, and the support; you bring your imagination!

Advanced Planning

I created this program to help students boost their public speaking skills in a fun way! As you can tell by the description, it does not say that! I didn't want them to get too turned off by the concept, but seeing this trend across TikTok has been a game changer when trying to entice the teens to come into the library.

The only advance planning I did was create a sample slideshow for the kids as well as a list of possible themes they could use if they had no ideas.

Marketing

Promotion began a month prior to the event. Our PR/Marketing person created a flyer and added the event info into our monthly listings. It was also on our website via LibCal.

The biggest attractor was the physical flyer that was hanging in our teen room.

Budgeting

The budget is optional. If you would like, you can provide snacks, if not then there is no cost associated with the program.

You can add "bring your favorite snack and drink" to make it more cost effective while still having snacks in the room.

Day-of-event Activity

Our library luckily has 12 laptops available for in-house use, so I made sure all of them had a full charge. We are also lucky in that we have a TV located in our programming space that allows the use of an HDMI cable for the kids to showcase their presentations.

Program Execution

The program was an hour long, with 30 minutes for planning and creating and 30 minutes for all of them to present (generally 2-5 minutes each). I encouraged a few minutes at the end of each presentation for them to ask questions or discuss the themes presented.

Advice

Reach out to your local high school to help with the program promotion. You can also reach out to local pizza shops and see if they would like to sponsor your program (pizza is a bigger attractor than snacks).