Nearly 1,000 children’s books are finding new homes in Oregon Department of Human Services Self Sufficiency offices across Washington County.

The Washington County Early Learning Hub has donated 980 pre-kindergarten books and three bookcases to locations in Beaverton, Tigard and Hillsboro — an effort aimed at promoting early literacy while creating more welcoming, family-centered environments for those accessing state services.

Angela Day, operations and policy analyst for the Self-Sufficiency and Child Welfare programs, helped coordinate the partnership as part of a broader push to strengthen community engagement in local offices, where residents seek support for everything from food and medical assistance to youth and family programs.

“One of the ways we are doing this is by having items available we can give out to families. Serving families and bringing literacy to children is beneficial for our community,” Day said in a release.

Books will be available in office lobbies and the department’s mobile unit, giving families and children something meaningful to engage with while they wait. Each title comes labeled with a sticker pointing to local early learning resources.

“Families wait for services in our lobby with their children. These books provide entertainment for young children. Parents can use them to interact with their kids while waiting,” Callie Herzig, Oregon Eligibility Supervisor, said. “All this further promotes literacy for children in Oregon. By having books available in multiple languages, we are enhancing accessibility for more families in our community. Over the last year, we have taken steps to make our offices more family oriented and trauma informed — this is another way for us to do that and build relationships with the community members that we serve.”

The donated books span a wide range of languages — including Arabic, Pashto, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, and both Simplified and Traditional Chinese — and reflect a variety of cultures and thematic lenses.

“Serving the diverse population from Washington County required some digging to get the books we wanted on specific topics such as inclusion and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math),” said Begoña Rodriguez Liern, director of the Early Learning Washington County Hub.

“It is important for (Early Learning Washington County) to support the children’s process around language acquisition as well as supporting the preservation of their native language. We also wanted to gussy up the offices, so they’d look more family-friendly, so we decided to give those spaces a lift up,” Rodriguez Liern said.

The Early Learning Hub is tasked with building a coordinated early learning system for children from before birth to age eight, with a focus on equity, access and school readiness.