Young Indy patients, students receive free books from foundation

INDIANAPOLIS – While some organizations have been forced to scale back their holiday giving, the Health Literacy Foundation, with the support of Hilton Publishing Corporation, has donated 10,000 books to youngsters in local hospitals and schools.

Copies of the book, Bear Crimbo (Hilton) by M.W. Goss, were distributed before Christmas to patients at St. Francis’ pediatrics and emergency departments, Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent and Community Health Network. Students at Indianapolis Public Schools and the Indiana Public Charter Schools Association also received books.

The books have a retail value of about $180,000.

“The Health Literacy Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides free medically relevant literature to minority and other underserved populations,” said Monica Joyner, M.D., director of the St. Francis Wound Care Institute. Joyner recently was appointed executive director of the foundation.

Hilton currently contracts with the Sisters of St. Francis Health Services Inc., whose network includes St. Francis hospitals in Indianapolis, Beech Grove and Mooresville, and nine other hospitals in Indiana and Illinois. The partnership provides medical books, journals and other resources to St. Francis medical facilities.

The Health Literacy Foundation and Hilton Publishing were established by Hilton Hudson, a prominent African-American heart surgeon from Indianapolis who now practices in Chicago. To learn more about the foundation, go to www.healthliteracyfoundation.org/Board.