Actor Mitch Ryan to Read to Children in Pilot Program

Actor Mitch Ryan, who portrays Greg’s father in the weekly television series “Dharma and Greg,” will be reading to youngsters on Thursday at Bloomingdale’s in the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square.

Ryan is the second celebrity reader in a pilot program being sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation, of which he is president.

Seven years ago, the SAG Foundation established BookPALS chapters across the country. PALS is short for Performing Artists for Literacy in Schools. Members of SAG and other actors’ organizations read to youngsters in needy public schools, including more than 100 in the Los Angeles Unified District.

“We discovered there are no books in many of these schools or in the homes of their students,” said Marcia R. Smith, executive director of the SAG Foundation.

So the Thursday readings from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Bloomingdale’s, which began last week with “Mission Impossible” actress Barbara Bain, were conceived as a way to obtain books for the schools.

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Those who plan to attend the reading are asked to contribute a “new or gently used book,” said Smith. Book donors will receive a 10% discount on any purchase they make at Bloomingdale’s, a co-sponsor of the readings along with Dreyer’s Ice Cream, Sports Illustrated for Kids and the Cricket Magazine Group.

“We’re trying this out,” Smith said. “We’d eventually like to have celebrities reading year-round at malls around the city.

“The more a child reads, the better a child reads.”