Patsy Poche, Baton Rouge Jr. League Little Bookshelf chairperson, and Deborah Hurlbert, LSU AgCenter extension associate, present books to children at the YWCA Head Start Center in Baton Rouge on Dec. 16. (Photo by Johnny Morgan. Click on photo for downloadable image.)

Making sure that children get a head start on reading was the goal of the LSU AgCenter Little Bookshelf recent book donation to infants and toddlers at YWCA Head Start sites in Baton Rouge.

LSU AgCenter extension associate Deborah Hurlbert said the donations get books into the hands of these small children at an early age so they can get a jump start on learning.

“We are partnering with the Baton Rouge Junior League to provide books to these Head Start sites around the city,” Hurlbert said.

The Little Bookshelf program provides a book to infants enrolled in the program each month for the first year of their life to encourage literacy, according to LSU AgCenter extension associate Courtney Pitts.

Angela Barnes, the YWCA Head Start center director/education manager, said this donation is appreciated.

“I order a lot of the materials here, and one of the things we do know is with infants and toddlers, they can be kind of rough on our books, so we do have to order a lot of new books every year,” Barnes said.

The Little Bookshelf program provides age-appropriate books so teachers can read them to the students.

“We serve pregnant moms and children from birth through three years of age,” Barnes said. “We also focus on high school parents.”

Barnes said they partner with Istrouma and Glen Oaks High Schools to serve teen parents there. They also serve community families that meet income requirements and children with disabilities.

Doug Leyda, YWCA family and community partnerships manager, said their approach to the child care and learning process is a little different from traditional methods.

“We have more of a holistic approach to providing services,” Leyda said. “In addition to providing child care, we work with parents on their parenting skills and with any other family needs they might have.”

Leyda said all of the children in the program are low-income, from families who may be homeless or have special needs.

“Our program is federally funded, so we only have enough funding to serve one, maybe up to two percent of the children in East Baton Rouge Parish,” he said.

Patsy Poche, Baton Rouge Jr. League Little Bookshelf chairperson, said the bookshelf donations fit in with the mission of her organization.

“We’re all about promoting family literacy and encouraging new parents to read to children from an early age,” Poche said. “So we adopted the Little Bookshelf program and have been doing this for three years now.”

In addition to working with the AgCenter’s Little Bookshelf program, the Junior League also has story time at East Baton Rouge Parish libraries.

The Little Bookshelf program is designed to help parents develop a foundation for literacy for their children by reading to them daily during the earliest years of their lives, LSU AgCenter child development specialist Becky White said.

“We are hoping to put these infants on the fast track to learning by getting their parents involved in reading to them at an earlier age,” White said.

The LSU AgCenter first launched the Little Bookshelf project in January 2007 and continues to provide books to children in the parishes surrounding Baton Rouge.

Johnny Morgan