Carter’s Charitable Foundation Impacts Military Families Worldwide
December 7, 2022
Read-aloud storytime is a crucial component in children’s healthy development and essential for literacy skills. According to a National Academies of Sciences study, reading stories aloud is associated with positive child outcomes in emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and social competence.
For our longtime partner Carter’s, the well-being of children and families is their core focus. They look for opportunities to build nurturing communities and opportunities for all children to bring about positive change.
Through Carter’s Charitable Foundation’s generous support of United Through Reading in 2022, more than 9,000 U.S. service members, children, and caregivers nationwide and on military ships and bases overseas shared storytime together, no matter the distance between them.
With support from the Foundation, we were able to bring our new Mobile Story Station East to the piers of Norfolk, VA ahead of the deployment of the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77).
“It was a great opportunity to bring this event to our crew prior to our deployment,” said Chief Religious Program Specialist Angel Pacheco at the event. “Families will be able to have a recording during the first portion of deployment, instead of waiting for Sailors to mail the first recording. It was a great morale enhancing event.”
Additionally, the Foundation helped us bring our new Mobile Story Station East to Fort Bragg, NC, in September and deliver thousands of stories nationwide through our App.
Carter’s Charitable Foundation has helped us deliver over 1,500 children’s books into military households, helping make read-aloud storytime a reality for underserved and at-risk military children. These children’s stories were then video-recorded by service members and shared with their families so storytime can remain a constant even when the military member can’t be home to read to their kids.
Carter’s Charitable Foundation is supporting services at the following 16 United Through Reading Story Stations:
- NSA Lakehurst, NJ
- Peterson SFB Library, CO
- 5th Squadron, 1st Calvary, Fort Wainwright, AK
- USS ARLINGTON homeported in Norfolk, VA
- Nellis AFB, NV
- USNS Mercy homeported in San Diego, CA
- USS MOMSEN homported in Evertt, WA
- USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH homeported in Norfolk, VA
- USS GUNSTON HALL homeported in Hampton Roads, VA
- NAVCONBRIG Miramar, MCAS Miramar, CA
- Fort Hood Family Housing, Fort Hood, TX
- Iwakuni Library, MCAS Iwakuni, Japan
- Battle Creek VA Medical Center, Battle Creek, MI
- USS ROSS homeported in Norfolk, VA
- 110 Attack Wing, Battle Creek, MI
- Hurlbert Library, Hurlbert Field, FL
For more information about the challenges of military children and families and how United Through Reading helps, please read our White Paper, Reading and Resiliency: Making Literacy A Military Community Priority, and tune into the United Through Reading podcast, Ready for Reading, for information and tips on how to read together as a family.