The Forest Lawn Blog has been up and running since October 2011, we've been live for about a year and few months! Wooo Hoo!

When people ask me "What happened in 2012?", I usually answer "It was all a blur..." However, now that we have this little blog, I thought I might take this opportunity to highlight some of the events that has happened in the past year.

• Community Garden: The Books 'n Worms Community Garden was officially launched on June 21st. With our ground breaking celebration, there is now a Community Garden in the Forest Lawn area. By mid-July people had a chance to harvest some zucchini, lettuce, beans and radishes. I can't wait till Summer 2013 to be able to walk through the garden again! This will be THE MEETING PLACE in Forest Lawn!

• Teen Afterschool: A program geared towards teens between the ages of 13-17 to explore, learn, and have fun outside of school hours. The program has been a great success in attracting teens of all different ages and skill levels. The library has offered programs from Yoga, Zumba, Cookie Decorating, Wii, Xbox, Drawing, and Drama just to name a few.

• First Ever Hunger Games Challenge: Our teens were starving for a hunger games challenge, and we did just that to meet their needs! We made our own little cornucopia challenge incorporating themes and resources from the novel. Since the Hunger Games was a great success, we came up with Hunger Games Part 2! In this challenge the teens had to reenact a scene from Catching Fire in along with learning how to write a script, design costumes and much more!

• Taste of Cultures: Every year the Taste of Culture has attracted over hundreds of people throughout the community. This was a great opportunity for everyone to learn about the diverse culture we have within this neighborhood. It was by far my favorite event to look forward to each year. I loved trying all different types of ethic food, and their outfits were amazing!

• Refugee Experience Series: The Refugee Experience Series has really taught the teens what it's like to be a Refugee. Our biggest event was a simulation of a Refugee Camp. Even now when I see the teens they talk about how they really enjoyed that process and that they gained so much from the program. We even had the honor to have Carol Huynh share her own personal Refugee Experience.

We hope you all had a chance to participate in some of these events. If you have a story about the library in 2012 and would like to share, we would love to hear it in the comments!

Over 400 people gathered at the Forest Lawn Library to enjoy our 5^th annual Taste of Cultures on October 20^th. Displays from the 15 ethnic groups were supplemented this year by displays from CPL’s Diversity Services and the Calgary Police Service’s Diversity Unit.

The participants were once again treated to a variety of ethnic food, and more performers than in previous years. For the first time, we offered some light opera (courtesy of the International Avenue Arts & Culture Centre, a new partner on the planning team) and a thunderous performance by a Japanese drumming troupe.

On Saturday, October 22, 2011 we celebrated the third year of Taste of Cultures at Forest Lawn Library. In partnership with the Bridge Foundation's In-School Settlement Program, City of Calgary Community & Neighbourhood Services, and the Calgary Chapture of the United Nations, Taste of Cultures is a dynamic event aimed to connect neighbours of all cultural backgrounds in the Greater Forest Lawn community.

Taste of Cultures is an excellent example of how Forest Lawn Library aims to be an inclusive and active centre for the community of Forest Lawn. If you ever thought that the public library is a dusty, stuffy place where noise is shushed away by stern librarians, Taste of Cultures definitely challenges that assumption! On Saturday, the library was vibrant with food, musical entertainment, dance performances, calligraphy demonstrations and even a group Tai Chi lesson by the New & Notables! We had much of the world represented through information tables and artwork, including Korea, Mexico, Iraq and China.

Taste of Cultures is part of The Refugee Experience Series of programming at Forest Lawn Library. For more information and registration details please call 260-2070.