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GREENSBORO PUBLIC LIBRARY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                     Contact:  Steve Sumerford: 373-3636

GREENSBORO, NC (August 31, 2009)

LifeVerse Project Needs Volunteers

Library Program Pairs Volunteers With Seniors

Training Sessions Offered in September

 LifeVerse, an inter-generational project that uses poetry and verse to create conversations between volunteers and older adults, is beginning its third year of providing poetry programs in retirement centers, nursing facilities, places of worship, libraries and coffee shops throughout the city.

 “The program has been very popular, both for the volunteers and the participants,” notes Assistant Library Director Steve Sumerford. “For volunteers, this is an ideal opportunity to learn from and enjoy the company of an elder, and for the elders it is an opportunity to reminisce and recall poems, songs, scripture verses and rhymes of earlier years.”

The program received national recognition when the American Library Association selected LifeVerse as the best library diversity program in the country for 2009.

 Volunteers will be trained to be effective facilitators and then assigned to work with a small group of older adults. Volunteers are required to attend two training sessions: September 12 and 19 from 3-6 pm or September 14 and 23 from 6-9 pm. All training will be held at at Central Library. “Volunteers do not need to be poetry experts,” said Sumerford. “We will provide all the training they need to lead conversations and group poem-writing exercises.”

 All volunteers are asked to pre-register by September 7. For more information about this program, contact Steve Sumerford at 373-3636 or visit our website at www.greensborolibrary.org.