Congratulations and Bright Spots for this week

Congratulations to Heather, who is the spotlighted WLA member for December 2023! We look forward to reading all about you in the December WLA newsletter.

Congratulations to Aaron who is the Kenosha.com  Kenoshan of the Week! If you didn't know, Aaron creates an incredible haunted house every year and it is very popular with fans of the macabre. Visit if you can and you won't be disappointed!

News from Heather:

"Principal Ursula Perry at Harvey Elementary reached out to KPL, wondering if we would participate in a reading program for their students. In this program, students are encouraged to come to a KPL location 10 times between now and mid-January. All we have to do is punch their reading card (shown below) for them. Of course we said yes, we would be happy to participate! Tara is ordering extra hole punchers to make sure that every service point has one. They should be arriving soon. Until then, feel free to make an "X" through the circles with a marker if presented with one of these cards."

Look who graduated from WLA Leadership training this year

 Bright Spots this week:

From Amanda: "Everyone who made Haunted Simmons and Slightly Spooky Simmons possible has a great deal of my respect, admiration, and thanks. Just as much of that goes to all of the Simmons staff who have watched the building get coated in bats and spiderwebs and coexisting with Mister Boneman McGee (my skeleton) who has been hanging out in the Staff Space. These events could not have been done without all of them.
Extra special shout out to Laura Kastelic for volunteering again this year to share her stories from when she worked at Simmons. She may not see this, but she is still part of this Bright Spot.
The Day Of staff took a group photo as well before the event.

From Emily: "I’d like to nominate the Haunted Simmons crew for Bright Spots! Amanda, Kahlil, Ed, Michaela, Alex L., and Nate were amazing and the event went so well! All the guests loved it, and by my surveys at least six of them are now believers in our ghost(s)! Also a shoutout to Elliot for sourcing amazing props from the Kenosha theater and Jessica for playing a very spooky ghost. It was a great night!"

From Amy Rae: "Customer service is more than just being polite and remembering to smile: When a Chromebook and hotspot set was returned earlier this week, DJ and Luiza immediately knew who we should try to get it to.  One of our regular patrons, familiar to YFS Southwest staff especially, had asked about the hotspots before, because she and her children needed internet access.  We checked the set out to my work card and placed it on my desk, then made sure that relevant staff knew to flag her down and ask if she still needed the set.  On Wednesday, she came in and was happy to check out the hotspot and Chromebook.  Her family will have WIFI for the next two months and a laptop for the next year because our staff listened and internalized a patron's needs."