Reach Out and Read Oregon
Reach Out and Read Oregon
Reach Out and Read has been serving children and families in Oregon since 2012. By making reading aloud a daily activity, Reach Out and Read Oregon helps ensure that every child has the foundation they need—cognitively, socially, and emotionally.

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Investing in Impact.

Reach Out and Read Oregon currently serves 26 counties across the state of Oregon with plans to expand our reach to every corner of the state, focusing on rural communities and clinics who provide services to families covered by Medicaid.

 

 

Our Program
Reach Out and Read Oregon gives young children a foundation for success by incorporating books into pediatric care and encouraging families to read aloud together.
> See Our Program
102,000
children served annually
158
program sites
170,000
books provided annually
129,000 kids ages 0–5 live at or below 200% of the federal poverty threshold in Oregon.
Give the gift of reading aloud to a child in need.
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The Power of Partnerships

ROR Oregon is grateful for the support it receives from Cambia Health Foundation and the important work they are doing throughout the community. As Steven Lesky, Program Officer and ROR Oregon Advisory Committee member explains:

Health disparities should not be inevitable. All people should have access to what is needed to live their healthiest lives. Cambia Health Foundation works to empower people and communities to achieve better health by investing in innovative ideas that promote primary care and prevention models focused on the whole health of individuals, families, and communities.

In these current, challenging times, Reach Out and Read Oregon is more important than ever. As this video explains, our program provides pediatricians and family doctors a valuable opportunity to address relational health, positive parenting and resilience during periods of calm as well as during ones of stress and instability. Handing out a book and observing how the parent and child interact with the book gives us a window into the relationship and environment at home. This can guide the provider in how to discuss and model positive parenting strategies, using the book as a tool for soothing and building language-rich interaction between caregiver and child.

Reach Out and Read Oregon

We Want To Hear From You!

Samira Godil

Executive Director
Contact Samira Godil

Samira Godil became Reach Out and Read Oregon’s Executive Director in January. She is passionate about leading the program that provides the Reach Out and Read model to 86,000 children and families statewide each year, in support of the health and well-being of Oregonians.

Samira has nearly 20 years of nonprofit management and fundraising experience. Prior to joining ROR Oregon, she advocated for the Portland metro area’s low-income and uninsured populations as Executive Director of South West Community Health Center, which she founded in 2002 to provide low-cost, exceptional healthcare to those unable to access medical coverage because of income, employment, or immigration status. She also serves on several local boards and has been instrumental in developing and implementing the City of Beaverton’s Diversity and Inclusion plan.

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Kristin Dreves

Program Specialist
Contact Kristin Dreves

Kristin fell in love with Oregon in 2006 and has been happy to call Portland home ever since. She received her Master of Public Health degree from Portland State University and completed her MPH field experience at Oregon Health Authority, focusing on adolescent health promotion. She then spent three years as the Program Manager for MIKE, a health education and youth development program for low-resource high school youth in the Portland Metro Area. For the following two years, she was the Project Manager for Oregon Pediatric Society, developing clinical trainings and leading quality improvement projects around pediatric mental health issues.

As the Program Specialist for Oregon, Kristin is passionate about ROR’s unique multipronged approach that addresses early literacy, relational health between caregiver and child, social-emotional learning, and mediation of toxic stress all in one. Kristin looks forward to continuing to work with existing program sites and supporting expansion efforts to bring this powerful intervention to more Oregon children.

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Christina Putterman

Development Coordinator
Contact Christina Putterman

Christina was brought onto the ROR Oregon team in 2019 after spending nearly a decade working with Portland metro area organizations serving the area’s low-income, uninsured and homeless populations. Christina brings a passion for connecting individuals, foundations, corporations, and volunteers together in support of causes she loves. The positive and evidence-based developmental, social, and emotional outcomes that Reach Out and Read promotes are ones that especially excite and energize her. Christina looks forward to extending the reach of the program throughout the state through long-term partnerships and increased awareness of the life-changing power that a book and guidance from a trusted medical provider can have on a child.

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Samira Godil

Executive Director
Contact Samira Godil

Kristin Dreves

Program Specialist
Contact Kristin Dreves

Christina Putterman

Development Coordinator
Contact Christina Putterman