The PLC, located on the second floor of the Wells Fargo building, 822 Central Ave., opened last year as a space for families with younger children to connect and play. It is an initiative of Linking Families and Communities.

The PLC hosts “open play” sessions several days a week. The two-hour play sessions are unstructured — the parents and the kids decide what they want to do. Activities are geared toward kids between the ages of 2 and 5 and vary from painting to playing dress-up, to scooping cereal and pouring it into small cups to exercise fine motor skills. The center features five activity stations focusing on imagination, art, engineering, sensory play and movement.

In the year since the PLC opened, it has slowly begun expanding its offerings for families, PLC Program Director Jenn Becker said.

“For a while, we were just doing open play, which was when families could come at any time and just free play and choose the toys and activities that they wanted to,” she said. “But this summer, we started to offer more structured things, so we did PLC at the park during the warm months — which we’ll do again next summer — and we started music class and storytime this fall. We’ll continue those through the winter months as well as open play.”

Starting on Jan. 3, the PLC will host a Postpartum Play and Connect class from 9 to 10 a.m. on the first Wednesday of the month.

“We hope to reach either families who have a parent who might stay home with their child or someone who is on maternity or paternity leave with their child, to give them an outing to connect with other adults,” Becker said.

Becker also plans to partner with different local organizations for knowledge and information-sharing for parents.

“Bringing in things like a lactation consultant to have here to speak with moms who might be trying to breastfeed, nutritionists to share about how you can introduce foods to your baby, car seat technicians, and just different things that families might be needing to learn more about,” she said.

While Becker wants the Postpartum Connection class to be an opportunity to share resources and information, the class’ purpose is also to give parents of infants social opportunities.

“Especially in the winter, when you’re a new parent and especially if it’s your first child and you don’t have a child in preschool or school where you’re meeting other families and parents, it’s hard,” she said. “You feel very alone…Because we know that most of the issues that we are dealing with as parents are probably experienced by someone else, but unless you have that space to talk about it, it can feel very isolating and alone.”

In addition to the postpartum class, the PLC is hitting the road, so to speak, to host “Super Saturday” open play events at several local elementary schools.

“We have limited space within our space here in the Wells Fargo building in the Play and Learn Center, so we wanted to see if schools would be interested in allowing us to borrow their gym and lunchroom space to have more room to move, especially for our older kids,” Becker said.

The first Super Saturday will be Jan. 13 at the Early Childhood Center, 104 S. 17th St.

There will be structured play and free play activities for kids of all ages, Becker said, though overall, Super Saturdays are geared toward kids up to 12 years old.

Super Saturdays will rotate around to four other schools, including Butler Elementary School, St. Edmond Catholic School, St. Paul Lutheran School and Duncombe Elementary School.

“We’re hopeful that it’s a lot easier for families who have never visited the Play and Learn Center before or don’t know about us,” Becker said. “It can be intimidating to park and to come into a new building, so we’re thinking that if it’s your home school, you might be more comfortable and more likely to come check it out.”

She added that she’s hoping to create more awareness of the program and reach more families.

Both the Postpartum Play and Connect class and the Super Saturday events are free to attend, but preregistration is still requested so organizers can know how many participants to expect. The PLC’s full winter schedule and sign-ups are online at tinyurl.com/FDPLCwinter.

Looking toward the future, Becker is hoping to continue expanding the programs at the PLC, but that means more hands are needed to help.

“We’re always looking for volunteers,” Becker said. “We’re completely run by volunteers, including myself, so our opportunities to be open and offer more is completely dependent on our volunteer schedules. The more volunteers we have, the more we can be open and serve the community.”

Anyone interested in volunteering or wanting more information on the program, or to donate, can email Becker at FDPLC@linking-families.com. The preregistration link can be found on the Fort Dodge Play & Learn Center Facebook page.