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Would you like to bring the joy of reading to the youngest among us?
Do you like giving out free books?
You might just be the perfect person to join our dream team of volunteers for the A-B-C Read to Me program.
Sound intriguing? Here’s the deal: A-B-C Read to Me is a collaboration between Johnson County Public Library and Johnson Memorial Hospital. It takes volunteers to make the magic happen. Volunteers visit the maternity ward at the hospital once a week to meet little newborns and their families. Their job is to greet new parents (those ready to see visitors, of course) and bring them information on early literacy. Plus, the best part: you get to give them free board books so they can start reading together right away.
Now, as a volunteer, you don’t just chuck a book at the babies and vamoose. You take a minute to talk to families, and give out a packet with information on how to get more free books and resources, both from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – which mails a free book to kids every month from birth to age 5 – and the good ole Johnson County Public Library, which has free books ready and waiting for everyone at each branch.
If you’ve been around books or kids (or both) for long enough, you may already know how important it is for baby brains to start learning early. You may not remember, but skills most of us take for granted as grown-ups take a long time for little ones to learn, so those baby steps (pun intended) are important. Learning to read is no exception. The goal of A-B-C Read to Me is to give families a reminder (and some books) to start reading with their infants. Reading with babies helps set them up to be readers when they’re older, which then helps get them ready to succeed in school and beyond.
So, if that sounds like a good time to you, we’d love to have you as an A-B-C Read to Me volunteer. You can find our volunteer application online at PageAfterPage.org/abc. You can also pop into your local library branch to get an application and say “Hi.”
