My 2025 Highlights and 2026 Hopes: Building LEAP's Community with Hannah Laudo

By: Hannah Laudo

2025 Highlights

Since joining the QL staff in August, I’ve had the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of many Quantum LEAP programs. I feel really lucky to work on a team where we step up for one another, and where that collaboration is both noticed and appreciated.

Once I had a few program seasons under my belt and felt more comfortable, it became my turn to design and facilitate my own activity. I love to read, so I thought it would be exciting for QL to start a book club in the current Winter II 2025 session. As a library facilitator for CCBDD, I already had connections at the Parma-Snow CCPL, which made the planning process even more exciting. Nera and I were really looking forward to launching the book club, but unfortunately, we didn’t have any participants sign up.

Even though the book club didn’t happen this time, I’d still like to share what we had envisioned for a typical meeting. For the first round, we planned to focus on biographies. We would pre-select a list of individuals to learn about, and participants would vote on who they wanted to read and discuss that week. We would have multiple books, audiobooks, and movies—when available—at various reading levels so that everyone could participate in a way that worked best for them.

During each meeting, participants would discuss and share (if they felt comfortable) what they learned about the selected person. At the end of the session, the group would decide whether to continue exploring the same individual the following week or vote on a new person and choose a different book, movie, or audiobook.

Hopes for 2026

I’m still hopeful that we’ll one day be able to run a QL book club. Even though we didn’t receive any sign-ups this time, something very positive came out of the process. I was able to connect our team with the Adult Services Librarian at Parma-Snow, who runs an incredibly successful program for adults with developmental disabilities—often drawing 50+ participants each session. We’re currently working on scheduling a virtual meeting with her, and I’m excited to learn more about what has made her program so successful.

QL has been struggling to fill westside activities lately, and I’m really optimistic that this connection will be the start of a great partnership. I’m hoping it leads to increased participation, more westside locations to host our programs, and—fingers crossed—eventually our very own book club.

I’m also so excited about the talent show we’re planning for June. It’s still in the very early stages, so I won’t give too much away yet, but I truly believe we have a group of incredibly talented Quantum Leapers. I can’t wait to see what skills they want to share and how much they’ll grow through the programs we’re putting together in preparation for the big event.