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Thanks to a partnership between Monument Health and the Porter Project, thousands of second-grade students in the Black Hills of South Dakota received a free book — and homework for their parents.

The “Porter the Hoarder” book series is written by film and television producer Sean Covel (best-known for the movie “Napoleon Dynamite”) and illustrated by artist and singer/songwriter Rebecca Swift. The South Dakota natives paired up to create a reading experience for young children and their families. Parents and siblings read the book to the younger child, who takes on the challenge to “seek and find” all the odds and ends that Porter has tried to squirrel away. If they can find all the objects, then Porter gets a prize at the end of the book.

In “Porter the Hoarder and the Hospital Hijinks,” that prize is an ambulance full of lollipops.

Monument Health and the Porter Project distributed the books to area kids in May 2024, via hundreds of classrooms across the region.