Ultimate Marvel Fans Stay
at the Hedgesville Public Library for 25 Hours!
On
Saturday, May 16th, 2015, the library closed at 5pm
for all but a group of people. These 30 individuals, however, would not be
leaving the library again until 6pm on Sunday evening. Some of them would not even be sleeping! They
were participating in the Penultimate
Marvel Movie Marathon, a 10-movie, marathon-screening
of every Marvel movie currently released as part of the “Marvel Cinematic
Universe”, starting with Iron Man and ending with Guardians of the Galaxy!
“We didn’t know what to expect,”
said Peter Allphin, branch manager at HPL. “On the one hand, I knew that local
cinemas had done something similar, and sold out every screening, on the other
hand, we’ve never attempted anything even remotely like this at the Hedgesville
Library before; would anyone actually be interested? So, we set a goal of at
least 10 people, if we didn’t get 10, we weren’t going to do it. We beat that
goal by day 3 of our first advertisement going out! But, we still didn’t know:
would anyone actually stay at the library the whole time?”
The answer was a resounding
“Yes!” as 25 people out of the original 30 endured the entire marathon and
earned certificates and commemorative Iron Man coins for their achievement.
They were also treated to food either discounted or donated to the library from
Dunkin Donuts, Food Lion, Little Caesars, Subway, and two very generous patrons
(and Marvel fans!), Jeff York and Stacy Dalmau.
“I was very surprised by how many
people stayed,” Peter said. “I thought at most 15-20 people might make it, but
25 stayed the whole time, and about 10 of them even stayed awake for the whole
thing! I never cease to be impressed by our library patrons.”
When asked if the library might
do another event like this in the future, Peter’s only comment was: “Possibly,
but ask me again after I get some sleep!”
More details and pictures from
this event can be found on the Martinsburg-Berkeley County Libraries Facebook
page at http://on.fb.me/1L6ZPbX
