Teens Connect on Discord Server
SFTL Starts County-Wide Program
What are you doing Tuesday night? If you are a local teen, you might be logging onto the library’s discord server to play games with teens all over Allegheny County.
Our very own Carrie Lowery, “Ms. Carrie”, Youth Services Librarian, started the discord server for teens during the pandemic.
“I was worried about the teens being isolated, I wanted to find a way to bring them together, even if we couldn’t physically be together,” said Ms. Carrie.
The server she set up for South Fayette and Bridgeville teens and was getting so-so involvement. She saw an opportunity to collaborate with other libraries, so pitched the idea to other local libraries during a Teen District Meeting. She got an enthusiastic response, and the server now serves teens from nine local libraries.
The collaboration was the key to success. In August, the server had 80 teens participating with 1,888 chat messages.
In addition to a regular game night, teens can chat with each other whenever they want, and there is a specific channel where they can share their artwork. One teen user recently wrote, “This server is full of friendly people. I cannot believe how much we do! From everything as Minecraft to Switch Games. There is something for everyone, even if you don’t play any games, you can still hang with cool people!”
Ms. Carrie is presenting about the program at the upcoming Pennsylvania Library Association conference next week to help other libraries start similar programs. Just another example of South Fayette Township Library leading the way in providing innovative teen programs.