Scavenger hunt highlights local businesses, library
Children find posters of books on storefronts to earn credit toward prize drawing
When librarian Jennifer Needham created the Booking Around Berlin scavenger hunt, she hoped to build interest in the town’s library and local stores while also promoting literacy.
But she didn’t expect to discover new businesses in her hometown.
“I grew up here and I’ve learned a few things,” Needham said. “I’ve gotten to see places that I didn’t know about — I had no idea they were even there.”
Since late December, families have been visiting 20 local shops, restaurants, cafes and other businesses as part of Booking Around Berlin.
They follow a scavenger hunt map to the storefronts, where there are posters of different children’s books. Youngsters record the titles on their maps to earn credit toward a prize drawing.
Needham worked with town Economic Development Director Chris Edge to launch the contest just before Christmas. Their goal was to get more residents connected with the public library as well as local businesses, where regular foot traffic has been down since the pandemic began.
Edge signed up 20 merchants and service businesses to participate; each one put up a post of a popular children’s book, and some donated gift cards for a drawing to be held in February.
“The businesses have been really gung-ho about this. That was kind of the point — to put the spotlight on them as well as the library,” said Needham, the head of children’s and teen services at the BerlinPeck Memorial Library.
The Color Platform, a hair salon on Farmington Avenue, put up a poster of “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” The salon is listed as number 15 on the scavenger hunt map, and co-owner Rosalee Frank said that’s brought in a lot of people.
“I’m not sure it brought us new business but it has definitely brought people to the salon,” Frank, a Berlin resident, said Tuesday. “It’s really cute and really sweet. I have two kids in the school
system, and it’s nice to see children coming in and being active, getting out of the house.”
The map sends families between 20 businesses ranging from Ron’s Automotive and Suburban Sports to the Lyon & Billard Lumber Company, the Xsalonce Hair Lounge and the Yousef Tae Kwon Do School.
For Edge’s department, Booking Around Berlin is the latest in a series of special contests and promotions to help local businesses survive the pandemic. Regular foot traffic is off sharply from last year at most stores and restaurants, so Edge’s campaigns have tried incentives — mostly drawings and raffles — to get more people shopping locally.
There’s a somewhat similar goal at the library.
“Since we’re not offering in-person programming like we normally do, we want to get the word out about what we’re
doing,” Needham said. “This highlights some of the things happening at the library and some of the books and services available.
“We’re working harder than ever. The library is physically open, we have all our material ready to go, we have virtual programs. We’re doing book bundles where you can fill out a form online and pick a theme and an age range — the library will pull some books for you,” she said.
The library offers curbside pickup for patrons who don’t want to go inside, and has copies of the 20 books promoted in the Booking Around Berlin promotion available for checkout.
So far, more than 50 children and teens have submitted entries on the contest, which closes Jan. 31.
“I’ve been asked if were going to be doing this again. We’d love to do it in the summer,” Needham said.