Pardee School Holds Book Drive For Reach Out and Read

The Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University has collected more than 100 children’s books as part of an end-of-year drive to benefit Reach Out and Read (ROR), a national program designed to promote school readiness and early literacy skills among children who are at increased risk for reading failure.

Through ROR, children between the ages of six months to five years are given their own brand-new, developmentally and culturally appropriate book at each of their checkups. ROR accepts new and gently used donations of children’s books, and is also in need of books written in a variety of languages, especially Spanish and Arabic.

Reach Out and Read was founded in 1989 with its first program at Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center). By 2001, dramatic growth brought the Reach Out and Read model to all 50 states, with almost 1,500 sites distributing 1.6 million books per year.

Today, Reach Out and Read partners with more than 5,800 program sites and distributes 6.9 million books per year. The program currently serves one in four children living in poverty in this country, and continues to grow each year with the vision that one day the Reach Out and Read model will be a part of every young child’s checkups.

View all posts