Reading Ready Pittsburgh, founded by our church member Mary Denison, is a local nonprofit dedicated to early literacy support for families.  Reading Ready Pittsburgh provides a variety of programs to support access to books and engagement around those books for underserved communities. The programs include the following:

• Raising a Reader, a bookbag rotation program, is implemented in 84 classrooms or home visitor caseloads in the Pittsburgh area- primarily in the Mon Valley. In total, over 1300 children will be snuggling up with books from Raising a Reader weekly bookbags this Fall when school starts again.
• Over 7000 children under 5 years old receive a book each month in the mail through Reading Ready Pittsburgh’s partnership with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
• Reading Ready Pittsburgh’s summer programming gives 8 books to over 700 participating children throughout the summer in the Mon Valley.
• Last year, Reading Ready Pittsburgh has also opened, “B is for Books,” a free bookstore for children.  Many children have visited the store, each one leaving with three free books.  In addition, educators can request boxes of books for their classrooms or childcare programs.  

Visit Reading Ready Pittsburgh website to learn more!  https://www.readingreadypittsburgh.org/