Books Build Better Brains

Reach Out and Read Minnesota recently provided 1,000 gently used children’s books for disbursement through the Bemidji Community Food Shelf. The books will be given to families visiting the food shelf to meet food needs.

"Make sure you're prioritizing what's important, bonding with that baby, loving that baby, enjoying that baby, reading, teaching, singing, loving that little one."

"To me, literacy is a core social driver of health given that it impacts your access to so many of the other social drivers. A child’s early literacy skills lay the foundation for how they will do in school, their potential for graduation, which impacts their ability to get a job with fair wage and benefits like health insurance, access to loans and homeownership, and ability to mitigate the impacts of environmental racism."