Military children visiting their pediatrician at Madigan Army Medical Center for routine checkups can continue to look forward to receiving a new book on their visit.

Thanks to the love of books of students at Grant and Mann Elementary Schools in Tacoma, the Reach Out and Read program will continue handing out books to hundreds more children of military families.

Students at those schools participated in Scholastic's book donation program, ClassroomsCare, which encourages students nationwide to read and help support families who have sacrificed so much for the country.

This spring, for every 50 books that a participating classroom reads, Scholastic makes a donation of children's books to Reach Out and Read.

Madigan is one of 35 U.S. military bases that provide the Reach Out and Read program to all children ages 6 months through 5 years old, and will receive more than 3,000 books this summer through the ClassroomsCare program, said Karen Fitzgerald, a pediatric nurse practitioner in charge of the program at Madigan.

The program has been wildly popular at the hospital, as it hands out between 300 to 500 books per month, Fitzgerald said.

"We have families that actually say 'Where's my book?'" she said.

The program helps encourage literacy in the house, and reading aloud to children can also help them cope with stress and anxiety, Fitzgerald said.

Reach Out and Read at Madigan was started a couple of years ago with a grant from the Department of Defense and a combination of other state and federal funding as part of a pilot program, said director Jill Sells, who watches over the state's 102 Reach Out and Read programs.

The search for funding to keep the programs going on military installations is constantly in motion.

While other Reach Out and Read programs in the state have the ability to fundraise for themselves through normal means, that's not the case with the programs on military installations due to the various rules involved.

"We recognize our military programs have a harder time when it comes to fundraising," Sells said. "We're working on fundraising strategies to keep it going."

Reach Out and Read also has programs at Fairchild Air Force Base and Naval Hospital Bremerton-Bangor.

"The families love the program, the doctors love the program," Sells said. "I can't think of any place we'd rather be than supporting military families. The intention is this be a normal thing of going to the doctor."