Sprague Mansion was the place to be on Friday, June 16.

Families from all across Cranston swarmed to the summer reading kick off program. This year's theme is Make Some Noise!

"We have eight weeks of fun programs, and each week has a different sound theme: roar, chomp, vroom, zap, tweet, boing, click, splash!," said Emily Brown, Youth Services Coordinator for Cranston.

Readers will be able to earn raffle tickets by recording their reading times online at cranstonlibrary.beanstack.org, or by completing a book review. The tickets will be entered for eight special sound-themed prizes.

"We sent speech bubble book review sheets home with every Cranston Public School student and we also handed them out at the kick-off.  We're really looking forward to listening to the kids' opinions and hope that they make some noise about the books they're reading this summer," said Brown.

The Library is working in close collaboration with several Cranston organizations.

"The idea for this event came from a conversation during the Youth Opportunity Zone meeting of the OneCranston HEZ where we talked about how fun the Scholastic Book Fair is when you are in school, and wouldn't that be fun if it was Free," said Ivy Swinski ,Project Manager for OneCranston Health Equity Zone

From that conversation the idea to make it the kick-off of the Summer Reading Program seemed like a no brainer. The Governor's Sprague Mansion came up as a place to host this as they could hold it inside a building that people may not have been in before.

"Once we knew we were going to have it at Sprague Mansion we approached the Fire Department about the possibility of combining this with the Fire Station open houses that they have done. They agreed and were happy to be in charge of the food and bring out the grill to feed everyone, while also giving kids the time to go through the fire trucks and ambulances," said Swinkski.

Inside the Fire Station there was a resource fair with multiple community partners, such as Cranston Substance Abuse Task Force, Parent Support Network, Elizabeth Buffam Chace Center, Onward We Learning, The OneCranston HEZ and RIPIN (Rhode Island Parent Information Network).

Each child who attended this event, was able to select a free book to keep. Families had fun browsing a beautiful selection of free books.

This event was sponsored by the Cranston Public Library, the OneCranston Health Equity Zone, the Cranston Family Center/COZ, the Cranston Historical Society, the Cranston Fire Department, and the Cranston Police Department.

According to Brown, over 450 people attended the event.