The Reading Tree believes that exposure to books and reading is vital for early childhood development. We seek to promote early literacy in our community through programs that educate families on the importance of sharing books with children and by building the personal libraries of these children in need.

In the past year we added 3 new pediatric clinic partners to our Prescription for Reading program, thus increasing the number of books we give away to low income children at their pediatrician 's office to over 1,000 books a month.   Our Growing with Books program has attracted lots of positive attention in the Bay Area world of children's literacy programs.  We have an 87% retention rate with our families - once they've started with us, most families stay in our program for the full three years.   Given our successful track record, other community organizations have asked us to partner with them to provide the early literacy component for their community program offerings.   We currently serve over 100 families through our Growing with Books programs from the Mission and Tenderloin neighborhoods in San Francisco.   One of our 2010 goals is to reach new families by offering our programs in  more SF neighborhoods.  To fund this expansion, our goal is to obtain funding from new foundation sources.  In addition, we intend to raise The Reading Tree's visibility through online marketing, outreach and solicitation.