August 21, 2003
MEDICAL CENTER PROMOTES LITERACY AND IS HONORED FOR PARTICIPATION IN “NEWSPAPER IN EDUCATION” PROGRAM
Hackensack University Medical Center was recently honored as a valued corporate sponsor of The Record’s literacy and education program during a corporate sponsor luncheon at the Marriott at Glenpointe in Teaneck. 

The medical center’s donation allows students in the Hackensack School District to receive curriculum materials and newspapers as part of the “Newspaper In Education” (NIE) program. More than 20 classes at seven schools have been able to participate in the NIE program through the medical center’s generous donation. This allows students to receive 20,000 newspapers throughout the school year, as well as classroom workshops and in-service programs for teachers at no cost to the schools. The curriculum materials, newspaper use, and workshops help strengthen reading, writing, and math skills and are directly tied to the New Jersey Core Standards.

As another part of the NIE program, the medical center’s donation is also sponsoring a special curriculum guide on healthy living, “Fitness – Head to Toe,” that is distributed to all schools in New Jersey. This guide allows educators to directly connect their health curriculums to what is happening in the world today. 

An award-winning program, NIE was named the best program in the country among newspapers with 150,000 to 300,000 circulation for the past two years in a row, and won a general excellence award from the New Jersey Press Association. The program also received an Innovators in Education Award from the Newspaper Association of America, one of only five newspapers in the nation to do so. 

“Hackensack University Medical Center is eager to make a difference in closing the gaps in adult literacy, and to help children raise their skill levels at an early age,” said Robert C. Garrett of Convent Station, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the medical center and honorary chairperson of the PLUS Literacy Awards. This year, the medical center hosted the fifteenth annual awards reception for Project Literacy U.S. (PLUS) of Bergen County, in recognition of outstanding accomplishments in the field of Adult Literacy. According to Emmy Bledsoe, executive director of PLUS, “40 percent of Americans say they have never read a book.” 

“We are extremely proud to have Hackensack University Medical Center’s help in this ongoing literacy efforts that means so much to the process of learning in the Hackensack schools. Thank you, HUMC, for this wonderful community service,” noted Cynthia Forster, manager of education services for The Record.

The medical center’s participation with NIE and PLUS are among the many ways it promotes the benefits of literacy. The Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital at Hackensack University Medical Center offers the national “Reach Out and Read” program, which targets families from lower socio-economic backgrounds, with children six months to five years old. These children make up a large portion of the patient population in the medical center’s Pediatric Ambulatory Care Center. In addition, pediatricians prescribe reading for 15 minutes a day during young children’s well visits, give them a new culturally and age appropriate book these families with children at risk for illiteracy can read books with their siblings in the waiting room, and are free to take gently used books home. Through physician and caregiver awareness, training, and the volunteers reading to patients and siblings, this program continues to thrive. Because of the medical center’s ongoing commitment and dedication to pediatric care, “Reach Out and Read” is an integral part of patient care. If you are interested in making a contribution of new or like-new children’s books to the “Reach Out and Read” program at Hackensack University Medical Center, please contact Erika Leewenburgh, chief of Child Life Services at (201) 996-5333.
 

 

Untitled Document