Ministry facilities give pediatric patients access to free books

By JULIE MINDA

A PeaceHealth hospital in Springfield, Oregon, and a standalone medical center in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, are among ministry facilities that are helping families to focus early on literacy. PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend and the foundation of Saint Francis Healthcare System are enrolling interested parents in programs that provide a series of free books to children from infancy until age 5.

Josie Hall, community health coordinator for the PeaceHealth Oregon network, says providing families with access to free books on an ongoing basis “can promote early literacy and hopefully a love for reading.”

Imagination Library

PeaceHealth Sacred Heart is asking new parents if they’d like to sign up for the Imagination Library program. Through that program, children receive a free book in the mail each month until they are 5 years old. They get to keep all the books.

Hall says the Western Oregon hospital decided to get involved in enrolling newborns “so that the kids can enjoy participating in the program for their entire eligibility period,” from birth to age 5. She says through Imagination Library the kids who enroll get access to numerous books.

Dolly Parton founded the Imagination Library book-gifting initiative in 1995 in Sevier County, Tennessee, where she grew up. The program expanded quickly and is now available in communities across the United States as well as in Australia,

Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Imagination Library mails out about 2 million books each month. Philanthropists fund the program.

Host organizations bring the Imagination Library program to local communities.

The Eugene, Oregon, Public Library Foundation brought the Imagination Library program to Lane County, Oregon, where PeaceHealth Sacred Heart is located, in 2014. Through the library foundation and other organizations, all children up to age