Retention of families has long been an issue for San Francisco, which has the lowest percentage of children among major U.S. cities. Our goal was to create a welcoming, fun and energetic environment, in partnership with our early literacy partners and educators, where joyful learning through play made the library a destination of choice. The playdates also supported the City’s overall goal to retain families with free high-quality, engaging, and educational activities. The program required collaboration, buy-in and outreach from community partners. This collective effort resulted in stronger community and city recognition of the library as an early learning resource, and reinforced the importance of early literacy skills and the value for young children and their families of visiting their neighborhood library.

Creating low-cost, imaginative and fun learning environments was linked to the five pillars of Every Child Ready to Read: singing, talking, playing, reading and writing. Supported by a California State Library grant and a professional Play Guru, the program engaged community partners and trained staff to provide developmentally appropriate, family-focused early learning programs and services. Easy to replicate, learning activities included peek-a-boo tunnels, treasure tents, pop bottle bowling and more. The spirit of playfulness permeated the 18 participating libraries, ensuring that the playdates reached and established the library as a favorite destination for high-need, at-risk children and families.

These play spaces, where noise, laughter and mess-making are encouraged, have fostered community goodwill, strong attendance, and increased awareness of the library as an essential learning resource and family destination. Building on the success of the Library’s preschool concert series, Tricycle Music Fest, these innovative, low-cost activities demonstrated the importance to parents and caregivers of engaging in music, talking and playing with children to build key literacy skills. The playdates enhanced the positive perception of the library for numerous partnering agencies, schools and community organizations. The success of the pilot version of the Big San Francisco Playdate, which drew 972 “players” to 18 branches in its first year, successfully established the programmatic framework, play-based activity kits and staff capacity to continue and expand the program system-wide.