Penn men's basketball players Ugonna Onyekwe and Dan Solomito normally work together as teammates, but last Friday the two were competing against each other -- for the chance to read to 9-year-old Tiantae Bennet.
On Friday, three players from the men's team paid a visit to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to read to pediatric patients in the primary care center's waiting area.
The event was part of the Reach Out and Read initiative, a volunteer outreach program that works to expose what Coordinator Kirsten Plender called the "under-served" to literacy at an early age. Athletic Department spokeswoman Carla Shultzberg and Plender organized Friday's visit, as well as one last Tuesday involving six members of the women's basketball team.
"We were very happy and excited to be a part of something, especially when children are involved," women's basketball coach Kelly Greenberg remarked.
Shultzberg approached Plender at the end of January asking if there were opportunities for members of the basketball teams to volunteer and found the ROR program to be a "great fit for us," especially since the University seeks to further academics.
The two teams subsequently asked fans to donate books for the program at several of their regular season home games, finally collecting over 500 to be distributed at CHOP's 39th and Chestnut and 36th and Market streets locations.
University President Judith Rodin herself noted the importance of students seeing first-hand the impact of their involvement in the community.
"It's a very important way of expanding the experience of athletics beyond the playing field," Rodin said.
Solomito, who Bennet insisted be the only player who read to her, also found value in the program.
Having someone to read to them at the hospital is "something you never [had], and I didn't have growing up, so it's pretty cool to see that -- kids coming in on their regular pediatric check-ups and they have people read to them." the College senior said.
And even though Onyekwe, a Wharton junior, may have been slighted by Bennet, he too had only positive things to say about the program.
"I think [literacy] is something we take for granted sometimes, and it's good to see programs like this taking initiative," Onyekwe said.
Teammate and Wharton junior Andrew Coates was the third team member participating. But since Solomito had already squeezed his 6-foot-7-inch frame into a waiting area playhouse, Coates did not have much competition to read Clifford to 5-year-old Jamyra Harper.
"It's wonderful to come here and be able to do something like this," Coates said. "I have little nieces myself, so I love little kids."
Members of the women's basketball team had a similarly good experience at the hospital.
"It was a really nice experience for the whole team and [the kids] were very excited for us to read. It was really cute," said women's forward Sunny Pitrof, a College junior.
The hospital staff also enjoyed watching the players and children interactl.
"I think it was a wonderful event. The players did a great job with the kids. The kids, you could tell, really took to it, so it was fun to watch," said Lisa Biggs, a pediatrician at CHOP.
The ROR program is especially important, though, to Trude Haecker, pediatrician and medical director of CHOP's four primary care centers.
Haecker, who brought the program to CHOP in 1995, noted that all too often the underprivileged patients CHOP serves "don't have the opportunity to have people read [to them]. [It's] not because the parents don't want to be good parents, but it's all about their opportunity to understand the importance of reading."
Haecker, a Penn alumna, stressed the importance of literacy among all socioeconomic levels. "You take that 5-year-old who's been read to endlessly and compare that 5-year-old to an inner city kid who's maybe been read to once or twice -- that tells you a lot about school readiness," she said.
Centers participating in the ROR program seek to even the literacy playing field by providing children between six months and five years of age with new and child-appropriate books that they can take home with them after each pediatric visit. Books are also available in waiting areas and the patient rooms.
Both volunteers, who may be found in the waiting areas ready to read to willing children, and practitioners encourage patients of all ages, as well as their parents to value the joys and skills that come with reading.
CHOP is always looking for volunteers for the program. "It would be a great program for anybody to do, not just basketball players," Solomito said. "We're a few blocks away... there's no reason why kids who have a couple free hours in the day shouldn't be here."
Both men's and women's teams plan to make the book drives and ROR visits an annual event.
