About Us

The Mini-Cassia Reading Foundation is made up of volunteers throughout the Minidoka and Cassia Counties. These volunteers include educators from both counties, business leaders, and retired professionals. The Foundation distributes free books to children from newborn to grade 3 throughout the Mini-Cassia area. We operate solely on donations and grants.

- With support of the Rupert Kiwanis Club, we provide baby packs to parents of newborn children, born in the Cassia Regional Medical Hospital. Each baby pack contains a book for parents to read aloud to their babies at birth.

- The Foundation provides free books to all children enrolled in the head start programs in both Minidoka and Cassia Counties and the Migrant Head Start in Burley, Idaho. We also participate in local fairs, community events, and activities to promote the importance of reading to children.

- This year, our administrative assistant, M. Helen Almanza, is making presentations to area day care facilities and handing out books to the children at each day care.

- The Foundation has partnered with the Burley Public Library and the Demary Public Library (both city libraries) to provide library cards to 6 county families who cannot afford to pay for library cards to use the city libraries.

- The Minidoka County School District provides funding each year to support a sign board which displays the logo of the Foundation and encourages parents to read with their children 20 minutes a day. The logo is displayed under the events section of this web page.

- The Cassia County School District has assisted the Foundation by providing supplies for brochures and materials for publicizing the organization.