Month: March 2020

We are excited to announce that our “Hooked on Books” effort collected OVER 20,000 BOOKS THIS YEAR!

18 elementary and middle schools participated in this area-wide book drive, and the winning school was Clear Creek Elementary! They collected over 16 books per student! WOW! GREAT JOB!

Clear Creek Elementary will receive $250 to go towards new books for their school library and one lucky class will have a pizza party.

Over half of the books collected from Hooked on Books will go to ROR-KC waiting rooms, where all children are able to take home a book each time they visit their health-care provider. The rest of the books are being distributed to agencies, schools and churches throughout the KC area who make sure the books go to deserving families.

Thank you to all of the participating schools and volunteers!

Read Across America Week is a nationwide reading celebration beginning on March 2nd. Sponsored by the National Education Association (NEA), this annual reading holiday also marks the birthday of Theodore Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.

This year, The Greater Kansas City Pi Beta Phi Alumnae Club members Cathy McCaddon and Sue Robinson read books to patients at Children’s Mercy West. In her third year of volunteering, Cathy says this is her favorite time of the year to make a difference.

“I like to volunteer for Read Across America Week because it’s such a fun event for the kids. There are so many things that you can find, support and celebrate for Dr. Seuss’ birthday. Every child that I have ever read to in a waiting room, I’ll ask ‘Do you know Dr. Seuss?’ and they say ‘YES!’ “said Cathy.

Over at Vibrant Health Central, the reading celebrations continued!

Fox 4’s Kathy Quinn read in Spanish to patients while also helping them with their English vocabulary. She credits early literacy as the perfect way to spend time with little ones, while giving them the tools for success.

“I love and enjoy kids. I home-schooled my kids for six years and we actually taught them Spanish so they would know how to read both languages. I’m a huge advocate for education and wanted to make sure that my kids knew the basics, so that key could open up anything else they wanted to do in life,” said Kathy.