Books for The Children’s Hospital at Providence Newborns
Brand new for 2011 – The Children’s Hospital at Providence will enroll new babies born at their facility in Imagination Library – and cover the costs for their first year. With a generous gift of $100,000, The Children’s Hospital at Providence (TCHAP) will support approximately 300 newborns each month through 2011.
TCHAP is supporting this effort financially and making sure their new babies actually receive their monthly books. With all the paperwork and arrangements new moms face, the task of filling out Imagination Library coupons often gets buried. So TCHAP staff or regular volunteers will register the children – with the parents – while the moms are in the hospital.
The TCHAP arrangement is especially valuable for several reasons:
- When children are enrolled at birth, they receive the optimum impact of Imagination Library: 60 books in five full years.
- Enrollment in the hospital saves the local Imagination Library from having to find and enroll those children, reaching children – and their siblings – who might otherwise fall between the cracks.
- Having TCHAP enter the children online streamlines the process for volunteer data clerks, so fewer babies miss the monthly cut-off dates.
- Providence Health & Services' involvement will likely help volunteers in Kodiak and Valdez – where Providence has facilities – get Imagination Library going in those communities.
Bartlett Hospital in Juneau, Fairbanks Memorial, Central Peninsula Hospital in Soldotna, and Samuel Simmonds Memorial in Barrow all support their local Imagination Libraries in many different ways, both financially and with enrollment. Best Beginnings is grateful for their support and hope this becomes the practice at all of Alaska’s birth centers and hospitals.
At press time, we are working out logistics with The Children’s Hospital at Providence staff, but the intent is to have all parents fill out the forms, regardless of where they live. Best Beginnings will make sure they get to their “home” Imagination Library community or that parents know their community has yet to organize one.
This article appeared in the Best Beginnings January 2011 E-newsletter. Please refer to our Content Reproduction Policy if you are interested in reproducing content provided on this website.
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