Reach Out and Read
Reach Out and Read is an evidence-based, national nonprofit organization that prepares America’s youngest children to succeed in school by partnering with healthcare providers to provide books and encourage families to read together. The end goal of Reach Out and Read is to prepare all children who enter kindergarten to read, learn, and succeed. The Reach Out and Read model is endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the program has one of the strongest records of research support of any primary care intervention. Each year, Reach Out and Read’s 12,000 volunteer medical providers will distribute 6.5 million new books to more than 4 million children at nearly 5000 healthcare facilities in all 50 states.
The Virginia Gay program was started in 2014 with presentations to the community by Dr. Maggie Mangold, M.D. and Jen Blix, LPN from the Vinton Family Medical Clinic. Your donation of $20 makes it possible to provide books for one child throughout the year. Books are given to young children in all four of the family medical clinics in the Virginia Gay Hospital network (Atkins, Urbana, Van Horne and Vinton).