Yakima Valley, Washington

Beginning in fall 2020, Unite for Literacy partnered with Save the Children to deliver age-appropriate books and family literacy tip cards to nearly 2,000 children and their families in the Yakama Nation and Lower Yakima Valley. Data tells us that a beautiful book garden is taking root.

Before participating in the Growing Readers program, 34% of families said they read with their child sometimes or often. After participating in Growing Readers, 95% of families said they read sometimes or often with their child!

In addition to receiving print books, program participants were encouraged to read a digital collection of Unite books that were curated for the community.

In 2023-24, the Yakama Nation and Lower Yakima Valley were supported through a First One Hundred Institute and technical assistance to write at least four locally and culturally relevant books which were added to the digital colleciton and printed for distribution.

a total of 155,764 books were distributed and 2,087 families participated.