MEDIA RELEASE

Kona Community Hospital provides a library of books for every family of a newborn through the Aloha Kids 4-H Club.

It stems from a program the club started years ago called “Project C.R.I.B (Creating Readers in Babies).” They collaborated with First Book National Book Bank, an award-winning children’s literacy nonprofit, to distribute one book to every newborn at the hospital.

With the understanding of how important it is to develop reading skills at an early age and to enhance the bond between parent and child through actions such as listening to your parent’s voice and helping turn pages, they have taken upon themselves to keep the program going for more than seven years now.

The Cheerios Spoonfuls of Stories Book Program requested that First Book select an organization from each state to give a year’s worth of children’s books to needy children across the country. For the state of Hawaii, they chose the Aloha Kids 4-H Club.

The Aloha Kids 4-H club consists of four seniors, six juniors, and one sophomore.

Group Leader and KCH Business Office employee, Dawn Inaba, said, “This is a wonderful opportunity for our young kids to give back to our community and make a difference.”

With more than 500 deliveries in the OB unit, this is an amazing program that touches many lives.

Since some of the members are seniors, they have recruited another 4-H club to continue the project. The Twinkling Stars 4-H Club take over the reigns in July 2010.