Lehigh Valley Hospital’s Reach Out and Read Program Celebrates Five Years of Tackling Childhood Literacy

Congressman Charlie Dent (left) reads to 3-year-old Myah Mclain of Allentown to celebrate the five-year anniversary of the Reach Out and Read program at the pediatric clinic at Lehigh Valley Hospital -- 17th & Chew. The program promotes the importance of reading to thousands of children and their families who visit the clinic each year.

Lehigh Valley, Pa. (Nov. 20, 2006) – U.S. Rep. Charles Dent today helped Lehigh Valley Hospital (LVH) celebrate the five year anniversary of the Reach Out and Read (ROR) Program at Lehigh Valley Hospital – 17th & Chew. A breakfast for volunteers, community partners and clinical staff included a visit from Rep. Dent, who served as the “celebrity reader” at the hospital’s pediatric outpatient clinic.

Also attending the event were representatives from LVH administration, the clinic’s physician director, president and founder of the service organization Quota International’s “Cops and Kids” program, who have been involved in donating books for the program, and volunteers from a local church who have made “handmade book bags” for the children involved.

Lehigh Valley Hospital’s ROR program began when retired nurse Rosalie Maehrer from the hospital’s outpatient pediatric clinic read about the National Reach Out and Read program and volunteered to become LVH’s on-site coordinator, a role she remains in today. Endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the ROR program focuses on children six months to five years old, with special focus on children living in poverty. The program provides volunteers to read to children in the waiting room at the clinic, medical providers talking to parents, care givers and siblings about the importance of reading and giving children a new, culturally appropriate book to take home.

Located at the LVH pediatric clinic at LVH – 17th & Chew in Allentown, LVH’s ROR serves over 4,000 children annually and distributed more than 16,000 books to children in 2005. Over $49,000 has been raised to support this program at LVH over the last five years and additional grants are received from the national ROR center. Currently the LVH program includes 14 volunteers who read to children as they await their well-visit appointments at the clinic.

The National program, founded at Boston Medical Center in 1989 through a collaboration of physician sand Childhood educators now serves 2.5 million children annually and distributes four million books each year from the over 2,900 hospitals, health centers and clinics in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, from which it is conducted.

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