Oh, Baby! Queens Public Library Welcomes Jamaica and Flushing Hospitals to Its Collaboration with Elmhurst Hospital to Support Newborns and Their Caregivers Through "QPL Baby"
“QPL Baby” Program Promotes Maternal Health and Early Literacy for Children Ages 0 to 5 and Encourages Sign-Ups for the Library’s Special Edition Baby Card
(Flushing, NY – August 28, 2024) Queens Public Library President and CEO Dennis M. Walcott today welcomed NYS Assemblyman Ron Kim, City Council Member Sandra Ung, NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst CEO Helen Landaverde, and Flushing and Jamaica Hospital Lactation Coordinator Ario Sutton-Pierre to Flushing Library to mark the expansion of "QPL Baby," a program that supports maternal health and fosters a love of learning from the earliest stages of a child's life.
QPL’s collaboration with its longtime partner, NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, began in August 2021. At that time, QPL introduced a special library card for children ages 0 to 12 and assembled kits containing a QPL-branded baby bib and information about library resources – including a card application, a brochure with QPL’s offerings, a map of QPL locations, and a mailing list sign-up – for distribution to caregivers and their newborns when they leave the hospital. Elmhurst Hospital now distributes 2,800 kits each year. With the addition of Flushing and Jamaica hospitals to this collaboration, an additional 4,400 kits will be handed out this fiscal year.
“Anyone who has ever had or cared for a newborn, myself included, knows the excitement and joy of bringing a baby into our world,” said Queens Public Library President and CEO Dennis M. Walcott. “At the same time, there is so much for parents to know. With ‘QPL Baby,’ the Library wants to help start their children on a journey of learning and discovery with free access to life-changing resources and services. We look forward to collaborating with Flushing and Jamaica hospitals to expand the work we started with NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst.”
The QPL Baby program also provides virtual and in-person programming about early childhood development and maternal health. This information, along with details about getting a card, a mailing list signup, and recommended resources, is available on the QPL Baby section of the QPL website.
To date, the Library has issued 15,000 baby cards since the program’s inception. The QPL Baby library card features a fairy tale illustration of a bear reading to a cub, surrounded by the forest, designed to reinforce the close bond between a parent reader and a listening child.
Also on Wednesday, President Walcott and a Flushing Library staff member read a bilingual book in Chinese and English to dozens of children during a regularly scheduled storytime at the branch.
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About Queens Public Library
Queens Public Library is one of the largest and busiest public library systems in the United States, dedicated to serving the most ethnically and culturally diverse area in the country. An independent, non-profit organization founded in 1896, Queens Public Library offers free access to a collection of more than 5 million books and other materials in 50 languages, technology and digital resources. Each year, the Library hosts tens of thousands of online and in-person educational, cultural, and civic programs and welcomes millions of visitors through its doors. With a presence in nearly every neighborhood across the borough of Queens, the Library consists of 66 locations, including branch libraries, a Central Library, seven adult learning centers, a technology center located at the Queensbridge Houses, the nation’s largest public housing complex, and a community learning center at another public housing complex, the Ravenswood Houses. It also has five teen centers, two bookmobiles, and two book bicycles.
Contact: Elisabeth de Bourbon, QPL, 917-650-3815, edebourbon@queenslibrary.org
