Transformative Books for
Young Families in the Bronx
In partnership with Jacobi Hospital, Bronx, NY
We are in urgent need of your donation of any amount to bridge teen women’s reproductive education and critical support for this new generation growing up without the safety-net and lifeline that Roe provided us. Contributions to Teen Readers Society are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
After a successful completion of three previous book donation programs aimed at young Afghan refugees arriving in the US in partnership with USAID, our Healing Through Books program providing books to teens at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco and the 2020 Wildfire Recovery program that in partnership with Penguin Random House delivered 5,000+ books to teens, who lost their homes in wildfires, we are now embarking on a book donation program partnering with Jacobi Hospital, in the Bronx, NY to deliver much needed books to teen mothers.
The hospital serves a population of 1.2 million in the Bronx and wider New York City and this includes a large number of highly vulnerable families. After seeing a sizeable number of teenage pregnancies and births, the hospital created a center specifically for this population. Some girls and women are as young as 14 and about half of them receive little to no emotional or financial support from their families and are in need of resources.
Thus, care for these young women and their babies is especially critical and is often a matter of life and death.
Education provided by books in this situation can be transformative and can impact two lives at the same time. Our experience is that books are especially valued when people are in the middle of major life changes.
The center for teen mothers on two different campuses serves about 150-200 young mothers.
We are still in the process of creating the details of the program, but the initial plan is to create a library of books at the center that young mothers and fathers can use while on location for various medical appointments (both pre- and post-natal) as well as book donations.
The books will be on newborn safety, nutrition, well-being, and children’s books for babies.
More about Jacobi for backfground: Jacobi provides health care for some 1.2 million Bronx and New York City area residents. It is one of the 11 acute care hospitals of NYC Health + Hospitals and a partner in the North Bronx Healthcare Network with the North Central Bronx Hospital. As one of the largest medical facilities of NYC, Jacobi houses the Bronx’s only burn unit and Level I trauma center.[1] The hospital also houses a Level III neonatal intensive care unit and FDNY EMS Station 20 (formerly NYC*EMS Station 23). Jacobi had over 320,000 clinical visits and over 100,000 emergency department visits in 2016.[3][1] Jacobi also houses the only Snakebite Treatment Center in the tri-state area.[1]