The city of Jacksonville recognized 20 students for their participation in the inaugural River City Readers program during a event Jan. 27, 2025, at City Hall. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on February 24, 2025 at 3:55 pm
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Duval County has long trailed its urban peers in the state when it comes to producing proficient third grade readers.
Rather than waiting for children to arrive in school to create a culture of literacy and reading, the Kids Hope Alliance, a city agency, plans to use a $5.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Treasury to place books in the hands of mothers almost immediately after they give birth.
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“It’s just a great way to connect with one another and build a bond, especially when they are really young,” says Kids Hope Alliance CEO Saralyn Grass.
Grass says the five-year funding will be spent to send nurses or pediatricians to under-resourced communities for in-home wellness checks, and to arm those health care providers with books to give to the families they serve.
The in-home visits are meant to reduce Medicaid patients’ reliance on taking their young children to emergency rooms for conditions that can be solved in a different arena. Literacy advocates say the early exposure to reading is vital to improving lifelong reading proficiency.
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“The more kids that can get a healthy start, physically, emotionally, educationally, it leads to higher school readiness rates, higher third grade reading, higher graduation (rates and) ultimately an educated workforce,” Grass says. “We’re just starting at the beginning, trying to raise great citizens of Jacksonville that will come back to our economy.”
Grass is a Jacksonville native and a Stanton College Prep graduate. As a child, she enjoyed the C.S. Lewis classic The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Jacksonville’s grant came from the federal Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act program, which allocated $100 million for local projects.
The funding was included in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, with stated goals of improving educational outcomes for special needs and low-income children; increasing the financial stability of low-income families; and improving rates of high school graduation. Jacksonville-area U.S. Rep. John Rutherford was one of 16 co-sponsors of the bill, which President Trump signed in 2018.
Duval Schools Superintendent Chris Bernier says children who are prepared for school can achieve better once they are on campus.
Duval County achieved a record-high graduation rate in 2024 with 90.9% of students earning their diploma.
In that same time frame, just 49% of Duval County third grade students were proficient on statewide reading assessments. That is a 3% increase from the 2023 school year but still below the statewide average of 55%.
“A child who can read at a proficient level by Grade 3 has a 96% chance to graduate from (traditional) high school,” Bernier said during a news conference in January at City Hall. “When you hear about River City Readers, and all the early intervention programs, there is a reason for that investment. That investment creates high school graduates. High school graduates create college and career ready students who come back and help lift this community.”
Duval County Public Schools Chief Academic Officer Paula Renfro added that nonprofits like READ USA, the literacy campaign from the Jacksonville Public Education Fund, and Mayor Donna Deegan’s River City Readers initiative all can help improve literacy.
Fostering reading habits
Patricia Woods says she often took her children to the West Branch Library when they were young children. She says reading is a way for people to learn about the world at large.
“Books bring everyone together, because books give you an insight on someone else’s idea (and can help) give you your own,” Woods says about local literacy efforts. “I feel it will make a better us, so we can come together as one.”
Woods’ son, Kendrick Battle, was one of the high school winners of the River City Readers competition. He says his mother introduced him to reading before elementary school and he’s always found reading to be a wonderful way to pass time.
“A lot of my first books were educational books and learning how to read,” Kendrick recalls. “My first series was Diary of a Wimpy Kid. But, as I went to the library, I started reading more fantasy books. Fantasy and horror are my favorite genres.”
Kendrick, 16, read more than 3,000 hours. He and his friend, Jackson Hall, competed against each other as an inside joke. But, they kept reading. Kendrick says the only reason Jackson wasn’t a winner alongside him was because he moved outside Duval County.
Grass grew up on the Westside, just like Kendrick. She acknowledges that not every neighborhood and community in Duval County has equal access to books and literary materials.
Literacy events scheduled
Kids Hope Alliance, the Jacksonville Public Library and others will kick off March with four days of programming and events as part of its Celebrate Reading Week.
On March 3, Jacksonville-based nonprofit READ USA will provide activities and information to parents to help their children strengthen their early literacy skills at the Charles Webb Wesconnett Library on the Westside. The event begins at 4 p.m.
Jacksonville's Celebrate Reading Week will culminate March 8 with a Family Reading Day at the Main Library from 9 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. It will feature readings for children, workshops with children's authors and a family literacy workshop from READ USA.
The New Worlds Reading Initiative at the University of Florida also will host a free workshop that will give parents and caregivers learning strategies, tips, tools and more to support their child's reading development.
Grass says complete community buy-in allowed Jacksonville to win the grant from the U.S. Treasury. In 2019, the Community Foundation of Northeast Florida brought the Institute for Child Success to Jacksonville to introduce the Reach Out and Read model that is now being used through the Kids Hope Alliance grant. It was part of a Donors Forum event that was also supported by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund.
In the weeks before this academic year, a team of officials from the National League of Cities visited Jacksonville to learn more about the way Kids Hope Alliance has built alliances, as well as its support for early literacy and share those lessons with other cities.
The SIPPRA dollars may be the most recent example of those efforts.
“The ultimate goal would be to raise from other partners, the city or philanthropy up to $31 million,” Grass says. “With that amount of money, we could do full county saturation, which would mean every mom, when they have a child, would get a visit in the hospital.
"That’s what we want to ultimately achieve: Everyone has access. It’s not just based on income. That takes away the stigma. If this program is available to everyone, there is no stigma about getting help.”
