Laughter, song, and sign language have been filling Monday and Saturday mornings in parks across Duluth. As the Duluth Public Library in collaboration with the Parks and Rec department have been hosting story an outdoor childhood literacy and play program every week in parks all over the area for the last 4 years.

And this year, they now provide American Sign Language interpretation to make the story time and learning more accessible.

Carmella Hatch, the Early Literacy Coordinator for the Duluth Public Library, shared with me the path that brought ASL to their Story and Play activities.

“A patron reached out and asked if we ever did sign language for story times and we have used ASL in some library events before, typically our larger ones like our kaleidoscope programs, our drag queen story time, and we hadn’t done it for just a regular story time like this before,

but we thought this was a great opportunity. We’re getting kind of out in the community trying to meet people where they’re at and we thought it would be a great program to incorporate some more accessibility.”

Story and Play Schedule

In its fourth year, Story and Play in the Park is held at various city parks on Monday and Saturday mornings. The program begins with an interactive story time, hosted by library staff, followed by open
play time with equipment, activities, and guidance provided by parks staff. The story time begins at 9:30am as the play time goes from 10am to noon. Carmella expanded on the schedule in saying,

“It starts with a nice story time and then it’s opportunity for open play, Parks and Rec always brings a craft program, they’ve got lots of toys that are geared specifically for this kind of zero to five age range. Of course, there’s the playground and then as the library we bring mobile book check out, we can sign people up for library cards and we always bring free books for keeps that if they don’t have a library card everyone can walk away with a book.”

The Story and Play in the Parks has been happening for most of the Mondays throughout the summer and are now having their last program coming up this Saturday, the 17th, which will be at Chester Park.

For next year’s schedule and for other programs, they recommend heading to their website. As on their event calendar they have other programs going on this summer. From their Story times and Play in the Park to story times at each one of their library locations. Both for Family, which is birth to five, and then for Baby, which is zero to two.