2018 Totals NICU Book Project

I started collecting books in 2014 for the NICU where my daughter works to honor the lives of my own twins and also of two grandchildren who did not survive pregnancy. As a reading teacher, I saw that children who were read to, had better attention spans and did better in school. It took me a year to gather 150 books sorted into packets of 5 books each. I delivered them in September of 2015. I had only planned on making this one donation, but the books were so needed by the parents, that I kept on gathering books.

Other people started donating books so we could attempt to make sure every baby went home with a packet of books. Parents read these books to their babies during their often lengthy stays, helping their baby's brains and creating bonding moments full of love. 

Here are two boxes of packets ready to go:

Each packet has a half sheet handout explaining why it is important to read to your baby. I put at least one board book in each packet, and we also create packets for families whose first language is Spanish. 

This year we had 1,630 books donated to the NICU. I purchased 613 of them, so that means over 1,000 books came from friends of our NICU book project. My sweet mom donates all the two-gallon zipper bags. 

Our 2018 donors are:

Michelle Schwendiman

Cayli and Brandon Johnson

Christy Tucker

Michelle Bulow

Valarie Schemk

Meredith Malan

McKay Dee Hospital Foundation

Child Life Services at McKay Dee Hospital

Tanya and Hollie

Alysen Jeffries

Sharon Hall

Krista Young

IHC

Britney Shaw

Rolean Peterson

Angela Jensen

Caitie Jolley

Marla Daniels

Jacki Simper

Angie Moore

Janet Gleue

The Other Side Thrift Boutique

Usborne Book Drive

Cami Allen

Heidi Voorhees

Heidi Crezee

Michelle Horne

Liam Gregory's Wish List

269 books came from Anonymous donors.

In 2018, we gave 42 packets to Jordan Valley Hosptial and 284 packets to McKay Dee Hospital. I believe we were able to serve almost every baby who spent time in McKay Dee's NICU. We may have missed a few, but with your help, we are getting close to helping every single baby at the McKay Dee NICU begin their reading journey. 

We've had two donations so far this year, 2019:

Michelle S brought these books over:

My mom, Rolean, donated another 100 two-gallon bags to help keep the books safe at bedside:

Read to a child today even if that child is you.

Link to our NICU book registry if you'd like to donate books to babies in the newborn intensive care unit so their parents can read to them while they grow. You can also donate gently used books to our project by sending them to me or to Angie. Email me for a mailing address. We can use both English and Spanish books. If you have a graduate of the NICU, or if you have a baby whose life you would like to honor by donating books to this project, let me know, and I can make a book plate with their name for the books you donate.