The Minnesota Legislature has just passed an historic investment in early childhood programs, including $500,000 allocation over two years for Reach Out and Read Minnesota. Governor Walz signed the bill into law this morning.
Kara Jacobsen, a nurse practitioner at Minnesota Community Care's La Clinica site in West St. Paul, is the winner of this year's Gerald GIlchrist Medical Champion award.
Medical students from the University of Minnesota have recently begun an initiative to read to infants in at the Hennepin Healthcare NICU though support the Reach Out and Read NICU program.
We have recently renewed our partnership with SMSC to provide over 1,400 Native centered children's books to clinics across the state.
"When we give [a child] the book, they get a big, huge smile on their face. We give the book out at the beginning of the visit and sometimes I'll sit and read some of the pages with them," says Nurse Practitioner Susan Goodemote
Our Program Manager, Janice Haines, reflects on the relationships at the core of our program, all we have accomplished in 2022, and our hopes for Minnesota's youngest learners in 2023 and beyond.
Our 2022 Annual Report is available to share and download. We invite you to learn more about our work to boost developmental health, family bonding, and early learning across the state of Minnesota.
We remember Malcom McDonald, businessman and philanthropist, who helped make Minneapolis a Bookend City in 2019.
We are thrilled to present our inaugural Diane Loeffler Legislative Champion Award to Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn, lead author of two bills to support Reach Out and Read Minnesota in the legislature. Watch her accept the award and discuss how this program has impacted her own family.
We are pleased to give our 2022 Gerald Gilchrist Medical Champion Award to Dr. Sarah Israelson of Lakewood Health System in Motley and Staples, Minnesota. Watch Dr. Israelson receive the award here.
M Health Fairview is piloting Minnesota’s first Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)-based Reach Out and Read program. One family shares the difference books have made during a two-month stay at the hospital.
Faisa will be working to support our program at our partner clinics in the west and north Twin Cities Metro, as well as parts of central and western Minnesota.
A new state surplus budget recommendation this week from the Governor's office recommends funding Reach Out and Read Minnesota as part of effort to boost literacy statewide.
Clinics in Minnesota are distributing children's books to make vaccinations more inviting for families and promote children's learning.
We commissioned an Ojibwe translation of our popular infant book "My Day" to distribute at our partner clinics.