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Valley non-profit celebrates National Reading Day with big book donation

Posted at 7:48 PM, Jan 23, 2020
and last updated 2020-01-23 21:49:15-05

Thursday marked National Reading Day, a country-wide push to get kids across the country to read, and a Valley non-profit that links children in the state's foster care system with loving, stable homes celebrated with a large book donation.

About 4,000 books were collected through the ABC15 and Scripps Howard Foundation's "If You Give a Kid a Book" campaign.

"Foster kids, a lot of times are behind academically when they're coming into the homes and so these books are an important way to kind of jump start and help them, kind of keep them on track and get them back to where they should be," said Katie Hernandez, the non-profit's foster care and adoption supervisor.

"It also builds attachment when the foster parents are reading to the children. Their arms around them, they're sitting close to them. It just builds that bond that we want them to have with the kids," she added.

Last year, Arizona's Children Association helped about 1,000 children in Arizona's foster care system.