History of Raising Readers    Iowa Stories 2000    In the year 2000 First LadyChristie Vilsack initiated Iowa Stories 2000, and Ames was selected as one of 7 pilot communities. Our charge was to develop a project "to create an atmosphere in the community that encourages reading and sharing stories by people of all ages and walks of life." Community involvement was a key element of the initiative. In Ames the project team was headed by librarians from school, public, and university libraries. The advisory panel included representatives from a number of organizations. A series of focus groups and public forums discussed existing literacy programs, what segments of the community were and were not served by those efforts, and what project could reach the under-served. Young children and their parents, especially low-income families, were selected as the target group for the Ames project. Ames Morning Rotary Club had received a grant to promote early literacy and sponsored two team members to attend professional training with the Baby TALK program in Decatur, Illinois. Baby TALK is a widely respected model of community collaboration designed to positively impact child development and nurture healthy parent-child relationships during the critical early years.    Baby Talk    In spring 2001 the Ames Stories 2000 team became the Baby Talk team and adopted this vision statement: “Ames will become a Baby Talk community to help families build a foundation for lifelong love of reading. Baby Talk is a program of community collaboration to nurture the relationship between parents and children and to promote the importance of language and literacy especially for children from birth to age 3.” In 2002 Rotary sponsored Baby TALK founder Claudia Quigg to present a 2-day professional training in Ames. As our community collaboration grew, we learned how to work together. The "Books for Babies" project, which the Friends of Ames Public Library started in 2000, became our first cooperative venture. This program provides a literacy gift bag to every baby born at Mary Greeley Medical Center, about 1200 each year. By the fall of 2003, Baby Talk had trained volunteers to visit new parents in the hospital and personally deliver the "Books for Babies" bags. Our plan was to meet each family when their child was born and then continually build supportive relationships with families through planned points of contact. Our next initiative involved several Baby Talk partners. McFarland Clinic pediatricians agreed to promote early literacy by giving a book to each child at their 6-month check-up. Ames Morning Rotary Club provided 1,200 new board books for the first year. Mary Greeley Medical Center organized volunteers to read to children in the pediatric waiting area. Baby Talk trained the readers, and the Friends of Ames Public Library donated a collection of quality books for them to read. Partner organizations have also adopted some Baby TALK activities in order to promote early literacy in their ongoing interactions with young families. The Ames Public Library regularly offers Baby Talk story times to encourage families to read with their babies. Human service agencies use Baby TALK curriculum in home visits and with parent groups. In 2004, the Baby Talk organization was legally registered as an Iowa nonprofit corporation and awarded 501(c)3 status in 2005 by the IRS. The next year McFarland Clinic and Baby Talk jointly applied to have a Reach Out and Read program. In February 2006 the national ROR organization named McFarland ROR an official site.    Raising Readers in Story County    In March 2007, members voted to change the organization’s name “Baby Talk” to “Raising Readers in Story County.” This will more clearly communicate the intent to serve children from birth to 8 years of age and their families and to reflect that member organizations regularly serve families in Story County and central Iowa.