Portable Libraries
We donate portable libraries to children’s wards across our region, meaning that there is a selection of up to 600 books available 24 hours a day for families to us. These trolleys, crammed with books for all ages are loved by the children, parents and staff on all the ward we have donated to so far. From baby picture/texture books, to infant stories, right through to teenage novels (that parents also enjoy reading!) these trolleys have EVERYTHING!
We get so much lovely feedback from families about the incredible impact the portable libraries have – and this is backed up by research. It has been proven that reading to a poorly child in hospital, even if they are unconscious…
- aids recovery – that’s right, it helps children get better! How amazing is that?!
- strengthens family bonds – all members of the family can feel like they are doing something to help by reading to their poorly relative, all too often people can feel removed from the situation, or like there is nothing they can actually do to help…
- provides some normality – hospital can be a very stressful environment, and getting lost in a story can make families feels like they are away from the machines, noises and other patients, like they are sharing their bed time story at home.
Here are some of the lovely messages we have had about the libraries we have donated so far:
“While in there I stayed with him and to mask my worry and soothe him I made my way through the selection of books which were available thanks to your scheme. These were a great help to me as it took my mind off the potential issues and I think soothes him to listen to me reading to him”
“Both my husband and myself gained great comfort from reading to our son throughout the day. It became a bit of a joke between us and the nurses that for every book I read him would give us an increase of 1% in his oxygen saturations, this often happened for the first two books!”
“We read our daughter books from Team Evie’s trolley at Barrow in Furness hospital a few months ago. It was an enormous help!”
“My grandson has just spent a week on ward 12 PICU and I sat and read him books from this lovely library and I must say these books provide an escape from the ongoing treatments and are definitely a massive help for the children and their families while spending time on PICU”
The libraries are funded in 2 ways:-
1. We run our Schools’ Reading Challenge, where we encourage schools to take on our sponsored event. The books bought with the money raised by schools have their school’s name printed in the front, so families reading the books know who paid for it.
2. Each November into December we run our ‘Christmas Book Appeal’ where we offer you the opportunity to pay for a book to be donated to our Christmas trolley donation. The book you pay for, by selecting it on our website, has your name printed in the front so the hundreds of families who read it know it was a gift from you…
