Medicine Hat Public Library’s Honeycomb House teen space already gaining popularity

By Samantha Johnson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on August 24, 2023.

Medicine Hat Public Library will be celebrating the grand opening of its new teen space, The Honeycomb House, on Sept. 9 from 1-4 p.m.

“The space has soft launched,” said youth and community librarian Stephanie Kuhn. “We’ve been running video gaming all summer for teens.”

About 20 teens have been showing up each Wednesday for the drop-in gaming times.

“It’s just been by word of mouth,” added Kuhn. “The first night we had three, then six, then 20, then 20, then 20. They have so much fun.”

Tech programs have also been happening in the space during the summer. MHPL brought in a creative engineer each week to teach the kids about sound and music production, photography and photo editing.

Earlier in the summer MHPL’s IT expert helped teens build their own PC.

“It’s already getting some use with these specialized programs, and those will continue going forward. But mostly, this space once it’s opened, will be a drop-in space for teens to come and hang out, do homework and use our technology.”

There will be one large screen in the room mounted on the wall, which has some low, soft chairs in front of it. They are still waiting for two PCs for the creative stations, which will also be equipped with gaming capabilities.

Honeycomb House will be staffed at all times and will only be open for drop-in at certain hours. Those are yet to be announced but Kuhn is hoping for between after school and library closing.

“We are hoping this space alleviates our meeting rooms so we can open those up to other bookings and the teens can have this dedicated space for them,” added head of marketing services Marina Boese. “With this space, we have more facilities and more room for everyone, not just teens.”

The space will be multi-modal and MHPL has lots of different goals for it. It will be about what happens within, creating new friendships, collaborating, finding a safe space, getting support and excelling in school studies. MHPL has created a new position, a youth advocate staff person who is specially trained in trauma support and mental health.

“If there are teens in crisis who are at the library, we’ll have that staff person on site,” explained Kuhn.

Honeycomb House was built in partnership with the teens.

“This space was very much developed hand-in-hand with the people who are going to use it. It’s very special in that regard.” stated Boese. “We’ve had a dedicated teen space in some form for years and this is the culmination of 20 years of development.”

The space will be the new home of TIC TAC (teens initiating change together and committed), which has been running for 30 years. This is a teen volunteer group at MHPL which dedicates about eight hours per month to meet with Kuhn at the library to discuss anything related to teens.

“They have me enhance the teen services and programs and I’ve tried to make their dreams come true,” said Kuhn.

The grand opening ceremony will be at 1 p.m. Sept. 9 and the afternoon will be a community event.

“We want the whole community to come down and celebrate,” said Kuhn. “Activities are going to be available for all families. It’s not just in this space, we are spreading out. There will be activities on the River Road lawn, video games in the theatre, blue box of Lego in our meeting rooms.”

Go to mhpl.shortgrass.ca for more information or check out their Facebook page.

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