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STEAM Truck brings Repair Cafe, drive-in movie to Smithers

Tour provides hands-on activities for children and youth within its mobile makerspace
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Residents of Creston gather in a grocery store parking lot July 6 for a drive-in movie shown on the side of the STEAM truck. (Facebook photo)

A mobile classroom that tours BC public libraries to provide hands-on activities for children and youth is making a stop in the Bulkley Valley.

The STEAM Truck which stands for Science Technology Engineering Arts & Math will be at the Smithers Public Library on July 26.

The truck usually provides hand-on opportunities to remote communities, but this year it has been adapted to serve as a Repair Café and mobile drive-in movie venue because of COVID-19 precautions.

Smithers Library Director Wendy Wright said this fit well with the library’s change of plans.

“We had originally intended to run a second season of the popular Repair Café, sponsored by the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako and Wetzin’Kwa Community Forest Corporation, where community volunteers assist others in repairing broken items, but COVID prevented us from bringing people together,” she said.

“Likewise, our in-person programs and events are on hold indefinitely but [STEAM Truck Owner] Farrell Segall has come up with a novel solution to the absence of live events by creating a drive-in movie theatre.”

Segall will repair people’s items out of the STEAM Truck in the afternoon.

The movie The Grey Fox, the story of real-life bandit and train robber Bill Miner, will be projected onto the library’s exterior wall facing their parking lot around 8 p.m.

The STEAM Truck heads to New Hazelton the following day.

The events are by donation.



Marisca Bakker

About the Author: Marisca Bakker

Marisca was born and raised in Ontario and moved to Smithers almost ten years ago on a one-year contract.
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