Uniform Kids Reading Corps
Uniform Kids | A Uniform Families Foundation Program
Uniform Kids Reading Corps
A firefighter in full turnout gear sitting cross legged on a classroom rug, reading a picture book to a room of second graders. That is the Reading Corps. Uniform Families Foundation brings firefighters, paramedics, law enforcement officers, nurses, and service members into classrooms to read to kids and remind them that the people in uniform are on their side.
A hero reading a book is the best commercial for reading ever made.
Who Reads
Every Uniform, One Rug
Reading Corps volunteers come from all six pillars. Kids see the uniform, hear the story, and ask every question they have ever wanted to ask a real firefighter or officer.
What the Program Provides
More Than a Story Time
Read With a Hero Visits
Uniformed volunteers visit classrooms, libraries, and after school programs to read aloud and take questions. Turnout gear, patrol cars, and ambulances welcome.
Books That Stay
Every child at a Reading Corps visit goes home with a book of their own, donated by sponsors and partners.
Uniform Kids Priority
Classrooms and schools serving children of uniform families are first on the list, so the kids who wave at the engine get to meet the people inside it.
Classroom Reading Kits
Teachers receive a kit of books about firefighters, first responders, and service members to keep the momentum going all year.
Career Day, Every Day
Kids hear how a paramedic learned to read charts, how an officer writes reports, and why a Marine reads every night. Reading has a reason.
Reading Challenges
Uniform Kids Reading Challenges with awards presented by the volunteers who read to them.
How It Works
Three Steps to Bring the Corps to Your Classroom
A School or Teacher Requests a Visit
Principals, teachers, librarians, PTAs, and after school programs request a Reading Corps visit through our contact form.
We Match a Reader
Uniform Families Foundation connects the classroom with a volunteer from a nearby station, agency, hospital, or base.
Story Time Happens
The reader comes, the kids listen, the questions fly, and every child leaves with a book.
Why We Built This
Reading, Trust, and a Reason to Look Up
Kids who read early do better in everything that comes after. Kids who know a firefighter or an officer by name grow up trusting the people who protect them. The Reading Corps does both in twenty minutes on a classroom rug. For uniform kids, it is also a chance to see their parent's world walk into their school and sit down next to them.
- Free for every school, library, and youth program
- Volunteers from all six uniform pillars
- Every child takes home a book
- Priority for classrooms serving uniform families
- Sponsors can fund books, kits, and challenge awards
Uniform Families Foundation
Serving the families behind the uniform: Fire, Paramedic and EMS, Law Enforcement, Medical and Frontline, Military, and Uniform Kids.
Uniform Families Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. EIN: 41-5063345.