Putnam Valley High School’s Library Media Specialist, Stella Mouyios, first began what she calls the Puzzle Journey during the 2004-05 school year. Five years later, the journey continues. Back then, Ms. Mouyios laid out some jigsaw puzzles on the Library Media Center’s (LMC) flat bookcase surfaces to see if students would find any interest in them. Before long, small groups of students began to congregate to assemble the puzzles.

After a while, teachers, other staff members, and visitors passing through the library were also taken with the puzzle activity. Whenever a puzzle was completed, Mouyios would glue the entire puzzle to a solid surface and display it on one of the LMC’s spacious walls. Mouyios remarked at the time, "There is a wonderful interaction between students and staff when they are working on the puzzles. In today's media-driven society, it's a pleasure to have human interaction amongst our students. Socializing is an important life long skill and I consider the puzzles to be learning tools."

For young people, puzzles can provide a sense of achievement, an opportunity for teamwork and socializing while working on a puzzle with others, and a chance to solve problems independently and know when you have succeeded. But for adults, especially older adults, they also provide the same sorts of social opportunities as well as exercising the fine motor coordination in the fingers and hands and helping to improve memory. Many puzzles are also beautiful works of art.

Over the years community members began donating puzzles. One student, whose grandmother is in her nineties and inactive because of a back injury, brings in his grandma’s intricate, 1000+ piece puzzles after she has finished assembling them on her dining room table.

This December the LMC’s Puzzle Journey will combine with another longtime effort—
the PVHS Make A Difference Club’s dedication to cheering up the lives of nursing home residents, senior citizens, and the homebound during the holidays. On December 17 members of the club brought along some of Ms. Mouyios’s puzzles to the Northern Westchester Rehab Center, in Mohegan Lake, and the Senior Citizen Center on Oscawana Lake Road in Putnam Valley, as part of their own annual holiday caroling visit. Club co-advisors Linda Cefaloni and Pam Adamovich, and music teacher Gerry Micera, all view this intergenerational exchange as an opportunity for students to connect with and serve members of our community. "Students bring gifts and baked goods, but making and gifting the puzzles is a perfect way of sharing the spirit of the season all year long," said Cefaloni.

Ms. Mouyios was thrilled that these puzzles that have been such an important part of her library media program are now finding yet another home, and she is proud of the students who are making that possible. “I believe it is good for the community to know that the school library is an academic and appropriate social setting for our 21st century students who are preparing for the world beyond high school by being active members of their wider community,” she said.