Reach Out and Read Minnesota

Help us Bring the Brain Building Power of Books to Young Children Across Minnesota

With your support, we can give every child a stronger foundation for success

2023

This upcoming year for Reach Out and Read Minnesota is all about digging deep and doing the hard work to ensure we are making the greatest impact we can on our state's youngest learners. While our families still face much uncertainty, and our healthcare system remains in a state of flux, we also have an opportunity like never before. Our Reach Out and Read Minnesota team is bigger and better equipped than ever, and our clinic network are finally able to allow in-person visits to evaluate and support our program at our 300+ sites! This means that more than any year before, our staff will be able to get into the clinics and give our clinics the support and training they need to make sure they youngest patients will thrive!  We also have a chance to bring our program to more children than ever, expanding our reach especially in our most underserved parts of the state. 

However, we'll need your help to make sure we can have there. Any support you give will help us:

- Buy the best books for our clinics caring for underserved populations, including books that represent our diverse patient populations and are available in families' preferred languages

- Get our staff into our clinics for visits in every corner of the state, ensuring that each site is having their greatest impact on the families they serve every day. 

- Bring on new clinics and train more healthcare providers, reaching new families and helping change the standard of pediatric care in Minnesota! 

Our clinicians can tell you better than anyone the impact our program makes on the families they see every day. Any support you can give will make these life-changing moments happen all across Minnesota!

"Books are medicine in so many ways.... My patients have started little libraries in their home. Patients and parents are excited to get books!  [The books] remind our patients of their culture (such as the wild rice book) which is medicine as well!"

Valerie Norris, MD,  Native American Community Clinic, Minneapolis

"Reach Out and Read has rejuvenated and repurposed well child visits. Providers use it as a tool to assess development. It brings joy to visits."

Maegan Storm, APRN CNP, Mayo Clinic Health System, Faribault

Reach Out and Read Minnesota is a nonprofit organization that seeks to give Minnesotan children a foundation for success by incorporating books into children's routine pediatric care and encouraging families to read together. 

Our program works with doctors and nurses across the state to provide children with culturally and developmentally appropriate books, and educate families on how to use those books to help build their children's brains. 

We know our program works! Reading to children has been proven essential to their brain development, their social emotional well-being, as well as their school readiness. Families in our program are 2.5 times as likely to read to to their together, and children in our program improve their language ability by 3-6 months.

We currently serve approximately 160,000 children across the state at 300 clinics. We know we can reach more children with your support!

Your support helps us to: 

• Provide more books to children at clinics in our most underserved communities, including books in Spanish, Hmong, Somali, Ojibwe, and Karen.
• Train more doctors and nurses across the state in our innovative, evidence based program. 
• Provide more meaningful support to our partner clinics and reach new clinics in every corner of the state. 

Reach Out and Read seeks to give young children a foundation for success through the powerful effects of reading and sharing a story with a loved one. To do this, we partner with doctors and nurses across the state to incorporate books into children's routine pediatric care visits and encourage families to read together.