Month: January 2019

 

Children at our 50 partner clinics in the Kansas City area are receiving a beautiful new book, courtesy of author Phyllis Grann. I Will Talk to You, Little One was written by Grann and illustrated by award-winning children’s book author and illustrator Tomie dePaola, and will be handed out to families at well child visits for two-to-four-month-olds.

 

 

Grann donated 220,000 copies of the colorful book to National Reach Out and Read, which distributed them among many ROR programs around the country. Reach Out and Read Kansas City was thrilled to receive 4,700 copies.

 

 

Our Medical Director, Sallie Page-Goertz, is a big fan: “The message is simple but very important – talking to one’s baby is important, and the messages show how easy it is to incorporate talking into normal day-to-day activities with baby.”

 

 

Our Book Coordinator, Janice Dobbs, calls the book “perfect,” noting that our book budget is tight, and this is a wonderful gift. “This book does a great job of relaying the Reach Out and Read message while also being an engaging book that I know parents will enjoy sharing with their little ones,” says Janice.

 

Thank you Phyllis Grann!

We’re Signing Schools Up Now!

 

Get registered now for Hooked on Books, Reach Out and Read Kansas City’s biggest annual book drive! Every year, schools throughout the region collect thousands of gently-used books for us (roughly 20,000 last year!), and we use them to stock pediatric clinic waiting rooms.

 

Patients and siblings can take these books home to read with their families. By some estimates, nearly two-thirds of low-income families in the U.S. do not have books for children at home.  Click here to learn more. We are trying to change that.

 

Hooked on Books is critical, as we generally collect about half of the waiting room books we distribute during this major drive, which takes place between January and March.

 

To make the drive more fun, schools compete, and the school that collects the most new and gently used books per student wins a pizza party for one classroom, a $500 gift certificate to use at their next Scholastic book fair, and of course, bragging rights!

 

If you think your school would be interested, please share this information with your principal or a librarian. Click here for more information.

 

Click here to sign up your school.

 

We also share some of the books collected with other worthy organizations. Please click here for more information on how to apply to receive books.

 

Thanks to the schools that have signed up already! We are looking forward to a successful drive!

You can’t have breakfast without a good cup of coffee, right? Caffeine aside, this year’s For the Love of Books Breakfast will really perk you up, as we’ll be hearing from Kansas City’s own “Bean Baron,” Danny O’Neill, founder and owner of the Roasterie.

 

Danny is a life-long Midwesterner who grew up in Iowa and moved to Kansas City after college to earn his MBA from the Rockhurst Executive Fellows Program.

 

He fell in love with freshly roasted and brewed coffee while he was living in Costa Rica as a foreign exchange student and launched his business in his Brookside basement in the 90’s. Now, Roasterie coffee is served in KC’s finest cafes, restaurants and institutions, and its air-roasting factory is located under the Douglas DC-3 airplane at 27th Street and Southwest Boulevard (you can’t miss it).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why is a coffee guy speaking at the ROR-KC For the Love of Books Breakfast? In his words, “Reading is almost a God-given right in my opinion. It has the power to change the trajectory of one’s life, forever; so, everything follows that…whether I’m a value to society, how good of a family person I am, whether I get involved with crime, etc. The power of literacy cannot be overstated.”

 

Goodnight Moon is Danny’s favorite children’s book, and he says his presentation will be about his childhood experiences. “I vividly remember learning to read as a child and how it opened up my world. I cannot imagine a life without it and it breaks my heart to know that there are folks out there who didn’t have that opportunity.”

 

To hear Danny’s speech and support early childhood literacy, join us at the For the Love of Books Breakfast on Thursday, February 14th at 7:30 a.m. We are still accepting sponsorships, and you can buy individual tickets here.