Order Reach Out & Read Books

The Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida, supports Florida’s Reach Out and Read sites. Encouraging parents to read to their child has a positive impact on children, including but not limited to, increased positive parenting, improvement in the parent-child bond, and improved language development in children.

The Department believes that reading to a child aligns with and supports one of 10 state priorities listed in the federal Maternal and Child Health Block Grant application, which is to address the social determinants of health that influence the relationship between health status and biology, individual behavior, health services, social factors, and policies.

In fact, the Department found reading to be so important, one of the three state performance measures developed for the Block Grant is the percentage of parents who read to their young child. The goal is to increase the number of partners and local county health departments participating in the Reach Out and Read program and increase the number of books distributed to parents and children.

If your site would like to receive books for free through this effort, please place your order using the form below.

Sites are asked to consider providing anecdotes or success stories regarding the distribution of the books to be shared on social media, newsletters, and other forms of communication. This is completely voluntary and not a condition to receive the books. The Department of Health would also like to share your wonderful efforts with federal partners through the reporting section of the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Kim Garcia at (850) 921-4494 or by email at KGarcia@ounce.org.

We look forward to helping Reach Out and Read sites put books in the hand of Florida families.