Playground at Children’s Library

The fourteenth library branch, the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library & Learning Center (CLLC) is rapidly approaching its 10th anniversary. The branch caters to children, students, and families with a computer lab, teaching kitchen, activity area, individual and group study rooms, theater, and community room. In addition to a large collection of books and other materials, the library features a greenhouse, teaching garden with beehives, kitchen for nutrition education and cooking classes, and spacious grounds with walking paths where patrons can learn about wildlife native to central Arkansas. A hub of activity, the Children’s Library also houses the Be Mighty Little Rock campaign (the library’s program that provides free meals for kids) and Count UP (the library’s free math tutoring program for students).

Thanks to the Jerry Kline Community Impact Prize awarded to CALS in 2021, CLLC is getting a new feature, a playground! If you have been to that branch lately, you might have noticed the puzzle that is the unassembled playground. Weather delays are making the final completion date a bit hard to nail down at the moment, but CALS anticipates that the playground will be ready by the 10th anniversary celebration in March. The total cost of the playground is $186,425.52, and it’s all being funded by the Kline Prize.

The Jerry Kline Community Impact Prize, developed in partnership between the Gerald M. Kline Family Foundation and Library Journal, was created in 2019 to recognize the public library as a vital community asset. CALS was a runner-up in 2020 and was the prize winner in 2021. In 2022, CALS received the $250,000 grant from the Kline Family Foundation and was profiled in the December issue of Library Journal in recognition of the award. Read more about it here.

Below are renderings of what can be expected upon completion. We can’t wait to have another reason for visitors to come and enjoy everything that CLLC has to offer.