“I’m getting married here next year — right under the pavilion,” said Glen Hooks, policy manager for Audubon Delta, as he trekked up the long and winding wildlife observation trail toward the newly construct- ed Little Rock Garden Club Centennial Pavilion at the Little Rock Audubon Center on Tuesday morning. “It’s just beautiful out here.”

Hooks was one of many staff members, volunteers and supporters from several nature and conservation organizations as well as city officials who had gathered in Little Rock to witness a ribbon cutting and dedication ceremony for the Centennial Pavilion.

Located in the heart of the Audubon Center’s 8-acre site and just off of the trail — which cuts through the scenic grasslands that make up much of the center’s acreage in southeast Little Rock — the pavilion stands atop a hillside and where low income housing for Black veterans who served in World War II and the Korean War once stood.

According to Jonathan Young, the habitat and working lands program manager for Audubon Delta, those residences were razed in 2000, and the Little Rock Audubon Center “has been on this site since 2007, 2008,” serving as a hub for a host of environmental and conservation activities and educational resources for area residents and visitors.

From behind a podium beneath the pavilion’s canopy, Uta Meyer, center manager for Audubon Delta and the Little Rock Audubon Center, kicked off Tuesday’s event by thanking members of the Little Rock Garden Club, which underwrote a $36,000 grant that funded much of the pavilion. Another $10,000 gift from the Union Pacific Foundation helped purchase the pavilion’s shade structure.

During her speech, Meyer also thanked the seven other groups aside from the Little Rock Garden Club that make up The Covey Partnership, an alliance of environmental and conservation organizations that frequently support the Little Rock Audubon Center, which include Audubon Delta, ACCESS Life, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, Quail Forever, Central Arkansas Water and The Nature Conservancy. These groups provide educational and community resources in addition to other forms of support for the Audubon Center.

Jeanne Joyner of the Little Rock Garden Club took to the podium next. “The pavilion is one of four community gifts the Little Rock Garden Club made this past year to our community in honor of our club’s 100th anniversary,” she said. Other gifts made on behalf of the club include the War Memorial Woodland Trail Project, landscape beautification on the grounds of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts and the funding of the publishing of a new book by Arkansas conservationist Theo Whitsell.

After an additional speech from Young, Meyer took to the podium once again to introduce seven individuals representing different groups that are part of The Covey Partnership to take part in the ribbon cutting ceremony.

The event concluded with students from ACCESS Life — an area nonprofit for individuals with language and learning disorders and developmental disabilities — participating in the planting of pots of butterfly milkweed in fresh soil that surround the Centennial Pavilion, while others in attendance stood nearby, sipping cups of coffee, conversing and enjoying the early fall sunshine.

“This is a long time coming … We’re sitting on a really unique site here,” Meyer said in reference to the historic grounds where the pavilion now stands. “Any time we can add a space like this — something new — to let people take part in our story, it’s really exciting.”