The BOOST Quick Guide: A Guidebook to Great After-School Projects

In collaboration with the Queens Library Community Library staff and BOOST Activity Assistants, and generous support from The Wallace Foundation, TASC created The BOOST Quick Guide to share the promising after-school activities that community libraries undertook as demonstration projects. Library staff members are encouraged to adapt these initiatives to suit the interests and needs of their communities. The guide includes a description of each demonstration project, essential elements for its implementation, and ideas for adaptation.

Every day, hundreds of children and young people leave school and head off to the more than 60 community libraries in the Queens Library system. The BOOST (Best Out-of-School Time) after-school program was launched in 2005 to provide these young library patrons with homework help and enriching social and learning activities. BOOST serves, without charge, all children ages 6-to-14 who come to any community library in Queens between the hours of 3 and 6 PM on weekdays.

The Queens Library asked The After-School Corporation (TASC), to provide library staff members with training and technical assistance to help them build the BOOST program. In the program's first two years, library staff members have created opportunities for children to learn new skills and information, to have positive social experiences and to connect with caring adults. At the same time, BOOST activities have made after-school time in libraries more structured and manageable.