It was the year 2000 when Chantay Collins first held Summer Reading at Maynardville Public Library. The program, aimed and keeping kids reading during the summer months, started with just 20 kids. This year, participants will top 300, and those kids have clocked more than 10,000 hours of reading so far.

“It’s just snowballed,” said Collins, who is the director of Maynardville Public Library. “We went from having it in the library to next door in the Senior Center because we have so many kids.”