{"id":147796,"date":"2026-02-23T18:58:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147796"},"modified":"2026-02-23T18:58:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:58:56","slug":"st-lukes-to-participate-in-read-across-america-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147796","title":{"rendered":"St. Luke\u2019s to Participate in Read Across America Celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Photo caption:\u00a0St. Luke\u2019s Monroe Campus President Don Seiple reads to children during a Read Across America event.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network will once again\u00a0participate\u00a0in Read Across America, continuing its long-standing commitment to promoting early literacy and a lifelong love of reading among children in the communities we serve. Volunteers will read to children at 20 partner schools throughout the community during Read Across America week, which\u00a0begins on the birthday of author Dr. Seuss, Monday, March 2.<\/p>\n

Read Across America is an annual nationwide celebration dedicated to the joy and importance of reading for children. The initiative encourages early literacy and language development, helps children build imagination,\u00a0comprehension\u00a0and critical thinking skills, creates positive and engaging experiences around books, and supports educators and families in fostering a lifelong love of reading.<\/p>\n

St. Luke\u2019s partners in promoting\u00a0<\/strong>literacy throughout the year include the Carbon County Community Foundation, which has supported the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and the evidence-based Reach Out and Read Program. Additionally, St. Luke\u2019s collaborates with Reach Out and Read at Star Community Health Sigal Center as well as the Cops \u2018n\u2019 Kids Program in the Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n

Cops\u00a0\u2018n\u2019 Kids is a community-based program that brings the gift of reading to children while encouraging positive relationships between children and law enforcement officers. Through literacy-focused outreach and events, Cops \u2019N Kids places books directly into the hands of children and creates welcoming environments that support early learning, trust-building\u00a0and community connection.<\/p>\n

Temple St. Luke\u2019s School of Medicine students have been actively involved in this partnership,\u00a0participating\u00a0in\u00a0Cops \u2018n\u2019 Kids events at the Reading Room,\u00a0located\u00a0within the Northampton Community College Fowler Family Southside Center, where they engage children through shared reading experiences. These efforts reflect St. Luke\u2019s broader mission to address social determinants of health and support children and families beyond traditional clinical settings.<\/p>\n

Beverly Bradley, President, Cops \u2018n\u2019 Kids Children\u2019s Literacy Program, said, \u201cWe have found that this program has been as meaningful for those on the \u2018giving\u2019 end as it is for those on the \u2018receiving\u2019 end of our efforts. Together, we have made a difference, and our hope is that we will continue to do so. We all believe that being able to provide the tools for our community\u2019s children to be successful will\u00a0impact\u00a0their lives and our community for many years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judith Dickerson, Director of Cops \u2018n\u2019 Kids of Easton, added, \u201cReading shapes how well people learn, work and stay healthy and keeps them learning on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About St. Luke\u2019s\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Founded in 1872, St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network with annual net revenue of more than\u00a0$4.5 billion. With 23,000+ employees at 16 hospital campuses and 350+ outpatient sites, it is\u00a0the Lehigh\u00a0Valley\u2019s biggest employer.<\/p>\n

The Network\u2019s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital is based at the Bethlehem Campus.<\/p>\n

Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke\u2019s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network\u00a0established\u00a0the Lehigh\u00a0Valley\u2019s first and only four-year medical school. It also\u00a0operates\u00a0the nation\u2019s oldest continuously operated School of Nursing,\u00a0established\u00a0in 1884, and 60+ fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 550+ residents and fellows.<\/p>\n

In 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recognized St. Luke\u2019s ahead of nationally renowned Mayo Clinic and Houston Methodist as the nation\u2019s three highest performing health systems for quality, safety and patient experience \u2013 affirming St. Luke\u2019s status as a leader among the largest and best-known health care providers in the country.<\/p>\n

St. Luke\u2019s has been named a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World\u2019s Best Hospital. It is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare\u2019s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality,\u00a0efficiency\u00a0and patient satisfaction. In 2025, the Network earned straight\u00a0A\u2019s\u00a0from Leapfrog across\u00a0all of\u00a0its acute care hospitals. It has earned 100 Top Hospital designations from Premier 11 years in a row, including in 2021 when its flagship University Hospital was identified as THE #1 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN\u2019s information technology applications such as telehealth, online\u00a0scheduling\u00a0and online pricing information.<\/p>\n

Information provided to TVL by:
\nGary R. Blockus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Photo caption:\u00a0St. Luke\u2019s Monroe Campus President Don Seiple reads to children during a Read Across America event.\u00a0\u00a0 St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network will once again\u00a0participate\u00a0in Read Across America, continuing its … Continue reading St. Luke\u2019s to Participate in Read Across America Celebration<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/read-across-america-26.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147796"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147798,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147796\/revisions\/147798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/147797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}