Reach Out And Read

The ETSU academic general pediatricians are clinicians, educators, researchers, leaders, and child advocates who are committed to eliminating health disparities and improving the health and wellness of children, families, and our communities by providing comprehensive family centered care, education, and contributions to the body of medical knowledge while fostering our personal wellness and professional development.

ETSU Health Pediatrics is a community based clinic located in the heart of Appalachia. Eighty percent of the patients we serve are on government assistance and many of them travel from outlying areas in Appalachia to receive care here. Most other groups in our area limit their proportion of Medicaid patients to less than ten percent or do not accept government insurance at all. In Tennessee, 26 percent of very young children live in poverty and only one in three hundred of these households have age-appropriate reading materials. There are significant barriers for the children here to obtain books at an early age.

We would like to eliminate these barriers by providing books during well child visits after counseling parents about the importance of reading to developing intellect, school success, and ultimately adult literacy. This counseling will occur within the framework of a physician-family partnership. Our goal is to provide books at every well child visit between the age of six months and 5 years. This will provide new, age appropriate books for each child seen for essential well child care. In our clinic, there are 2,430 children between the ages of six months and five years who will benefit from this program. Our challenge now is to diversify the types of preschool books that we offer so that we can guarantee that each child has a brand new book every time.

We are currently accepting donations of books with the following criteria:

• Gently used, no marks torn pages, etc.
• Nothing with religious themes, or books about divorce, death, or violence.
• Also books cannot contain batteries or small parts not acceptable for children under the age of 3.
• We cannot permit any workbooks.

Our wish list includes:

• Spanish children's books
• Multicultural books
• Sensory books including "touch and experience" textures.
• Caldecott Award Winning Books.

Please bring your donation to: