It’s another Ambassador Tuesday and we’re going to visit two great RIF volunteers in the Cornhusker and Mountain States.
Nebraska RIF ambassador, Janel Keyes, is the media specialist at Howard Elementary in Grand Island, Neb., which has been a RIF school since 1984. Since RIF came to Howard Elementary, there have been several coordinators and media specialists. Janel was involved as a RIF volunteer for several years before becoming the official coordinator in 2008. “Howard students love to read,” said Janel. “But many children here have no books of their own.” This year, the first distribution was coordinated with Red Ribbon Week—the theme was “Follow Me, I’m Drug Free.” One day during RIF week, students wrote out their life goals and how reading and school can help the students achieve them. In the classrooms, Janel ensures that teachers are involved with various author studies, while students read and vote for state award books. “Guest readers have always been welcome here at Howard,” said Janel. “Students absolutely LOVE it when popular authors and illustrators visit. Howard students love reading!”
West Virginia veteran teacher and RIF ambassador, Lois Meadows, would never have imagined in 1992 that in 2009, she would be running five school-based RIF programs. After meeting RIF representatives at a reading conference in 1992, Lois was determined to secure a RIF grant for her local Wood County Reading Council in Parkersburg, W.V. After a few years, her first grant was approved and she began working with a few Title I schools in Wood County. At first, Lois could only serve the kindergarten classes at three schools, but she has since brought RIF to more than 1,000 students, K-5, in four Title I schools. When she wrote her grant for the Wood County Reading Council, she also wrote a second RIF grant for her own Emerson Elementary School. Eight years ago, that grant was approved and she now serves an additional 400 students! As a RIF volunteer for more than 15 years, Lois has been able to experience the joy RIF books have brought to children when they choose their free book at book distributions. After 35 years of teaching, Lois continues to bring the joy of reading to the children in her community. Thank you, Lois!
Happy Ambassador Tuesday! This week we’re going to meet RIF volunteers, Linda and Lucy, our RIF Ambassadors from Connecticut and South Dakota!
Connecticut RIF Ambassador Linda Bafumi is a reading specialist and Reading Recovery teacher at Simon Lake Elementary School in Milford, Conn. This is her second year as the RIF Coordinator at Simon Lake. Linda is passionate about promoting literacy and is aware that building strong readers and writers will lead to an improvement in families’ lives by fostering education, better jobs, and healthier decision making. One of the RIF activities children and faculty enjoy is the annual Read at the Beach event that takes place at Walnut Beach in Milford. Children, faculty, and parent volunteers walk to the beach and relax on their beach towels for some uninterrupted reading of RIF books. Read at the Beach follows the spring RIF book distribution and also serves as both a culmination of the school year and a launch into summer reading for the students. This year, Simon Lake Elementary is celebrating its 50th birthday! Congratulations Linda and Simon Lake!
South Dakota RIF Ambassador Lucy Her Many Horses, an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, is a pediatrician who is employed by the tribe to offer Well Child Clinics in communities across the Rosebud Reservation. Lucy contributes to the local WIC program’s nutrition education and counseling of participants, in addition to the assessment of infants and children with developmental or physical problems. Prior to returning to Rosebud, Lucy received her B.A. at the University of California San Diego, her M.D. at the University of California San Francisco, and her specialty training at the University of Colorado Affiliated Hospitals in Denver. She and her husband, Randy, have seven children. They have both been involved in programs that promote education, literacy, and creativity on the reservation.
A teenage RIF volunteer shares a story on the Rosebud Indian Reservation
For this week’s Ambassador introductions, we’re heading South for a visit with our Ambassadors from Alabama and Kentucky.
Alabama ambassador, Sandra Jarman Calvin, has been an educator for 31 years and is now the Title 1 Parenting Coordinator and After School Program Director for Decatur City Schools in Decatur, Alabama. Since leaving the classroom, the students address Sandra as “Ms. Cookie” whenever they see her around school. Sandra applied for the RIF grant eight years ago and has been running the program in five local elementary schools. “Ms. Cookie” loves to see the faces of the students when they walk into a room filled with books they can choose from. Reading has always been extremely important to Sandra, even after leaving the classroom. “Reading opens your eyes, heart, and mind to a whole new world,” says Sandra. “I feel privileged and truly honored to be selected as the RIF ambassador for the state of Alabama.” Her life motto is “Live, laugh, and love!”
Kentucky ambassador, Kendra Mitchell, has organized the Lincoln County Schools RIF Program for the past two years. As the Lincoln County Schools Community Education Director and Parent Involvement Coordinator, Kendra has been employed by Lincoln County Schools for over five years and has coordinated many programs, including the Health and Wellness and Drug Free Communities programs. The Lincoln County Schools RIF Program consists of eight RIF distribution sites and serves over 2,600 children annually. Kendra insists that dedication and strong community support from many librarians, teachers, parent volunteers, and local businesses ensures a successful RIF program. In an effort to promote reading, site coordinators plan, organize, and implement a variety of RIF distribution themed events throughout the school year. Over the years, the Lincoln County Schools RIF Program has put books in the hands of thousands of children. “Seeing the excitement on their faces when they receive their new books is priceless,” says Kendra. “It shows the importance of the national RIF program.”
With only a few more weeks left of RIF Ambassador introductions, let’s visit with some dedicated volunteers in New Mexico and Mississippi.
New Mexico Ambassador, William C. Carson, initiated the Salazar Partnership RIF program in 2001 to distribute books to approximately 1,000 students at two Santa Fe, N.M., elementary Title 1 schools. In addition to hosting three RIF distributions every year, the Salazar Partnership arranges for 75 volunteers (mostly retired) to work with students one-to-one or in small groups. In some cases, volunteers are able to work with the same students from one school year to the next. “Continuity is the key,” says Mr. Carson. “Many students in the schools we work with have rather fluid home situations or limited interactions with older adults. Anything our volunteers can do to contribute to a child’s sense of stability helps to lay the groundwork for success in school and elsewhere in life.”
Fourth and fifth graders at Salazar Elementary have fun during their weekly read-aloud with Mr. Carson.
Mississippi Ambassador, Fergenia Hood, is a retired public school teacher. She taught for 27 years, most of it in Holly Springs, Miss. She was a junior high English and reading teacher before her employment with Institute of Community Services, Inc. (ICS) in 1997. She has a bachelor of arts English degree from Rust College, plus master of education degrees in reading and English from the University of Mississippi. She has also received extensive training in early childhood development. Ms. Hood was appointed to the Holly Springs School District Board of Education and serves on numerous community and church organizations. She has received several awards and recognitions including the Time Warner Communications Award. “I am very excited about serving as RIF ambassador for the great state of Mississippi,” says Hood. “I believe it will be a challenging opportunity to meet great educators across the state and inspire others to become avid readers.”
(From left to right.) U.S. Congressman Travis Childers (MS-1) reads RIF books to ICS Head Start Children. Dr. David Daigneault, Grenada Public Schools Superintendent, reads to children at the Grenada Head Start Center.
The ambassador letter of the week is “O” as in, “Oh my, let’s meet some outstanding ambassadors from Oklahoma and Ohio!”
Ohio RIF ambassador, Sue Sattler, has been a RIF coordinator for the past six years and loves to see the joy on her students’ faces when they pick out books for their own small children. Sue’s love for family led her to a career in education, working with pregnant teens, teen parents, and their families. For the past 21 years, Sue has been an instructor in the GRADS Program, an in-school educational program for pregnant and parenting teens. Throughout her teaching experience, she has seen positive outcomes when working with teen parents’ families, who are provided with education, support, and resources. “What better way to strengthen teen parents’ families than to sit down, read together, and enjoy the love of books together,” Sue said. “And that’s where RIF and Shared Beginnings come into play.” Sue feels honored to be a RIF ambassador and is looking forward to serving and promoting RIF.
Oklahoma RIF ambassador, Linda Hines, became the RIF coordinator at Will Rogers Early Childhood Center when the local Dollar General Corporation provided grants for their area elementary schools as a way to promote literacy in the community. In order to continue running her RIF program, Linda applied for and was granted federal funding for her RIF program due to a high level of need at the center. The Will Rogers Early Childhood Center serves approximately 500 pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children. With her love of reading, it was a natural move for Linda to become the literacy resource specialist when Will Rogers became a Phase IV Literacy First School. As the literacy and reading coach, Linda works with those students who are emerging readers. She loves experiencing the excitement when it “clicks” and her students realize they are reading. We love it too, Linda!
I’m excited to introduce two RIF ambassadors this week who each bring different experiences to their RIF programs, but are equally dedicated to spreading the joy of reading in their respective communities. Please join me in welcoming the RIF ambassadors from North Dakota and Virginia.
North Dakota RIF ambassador, Shirley Deibert, has worked in the field of early childhood for 35 years, 23 of those years with the Minot Head Start Program (MHS), in Minot, North Dakota. It is an inclusive program serving children that are economically and/or developmentally at risk. In 1993, Shirley left the classroom to become the professional development coordinator and eventually, she also became the RIF site coordinator for MHS. Over her seven years of involvement with RIF’s Family of Readers program, MHS has seen substantial growth in the number of parents helping their children build a love of books. For their final RIF event of the year, “Star Light, Star Bright, Won’t You Read Me a Book Tonight?” MHS converted their gym into an observatory where RIF children and parents had the opportunity to climb into a dome-shaped sphere and enjoy a night sky together before singing songs and choosing RIF books. Bravo, Shirley and Minot Head Start!
Two Minot Head Start children explore a RIF book in the comfort of a classroom reading corner.
In 2001, Virginia RIF ambassador, Michelle Carrera, started Thomas-Carrera Consulting and together with more than 100 companies and various public entities, she has leveraged over $4.6 million dollars in workforce programming. Michelle is heavily involved in facilitating relationships that strategically place employers at the forefront of workforce development within the community. She started the first RIF program in Norfolk, Virginia and established a partnership with the Rotary Club of Norfolk that now serves 17 schools and over 5,00 children, with the goal of serving all 22 schools by 2012. Michelle is a candidate at the University of Maryland Ph.D. program for organizational leadership. Her research is centered on the effective transfer of institutional knowledge and experiential learning environments. She resides in Hampton, Virginia with her sons Jonathan 15, and Nicholas, 12.
RIF volunteers and children from The Literacy Partnership in Norfolk, Virginia share the joy of reading together.
On this RIF Ambassador Tuesday, we’ll be introducing some of RIF’s best from the Midwest!
Kansas Ambassador, Pamela Madaus, was hired as Program Director for Reach Out and Read Kansas City in 2007. As a lifelong lover of books, Pam was excited to become a part of the effort to ensure that all children grow up with books as a part of a healthy childhood and enter kindergarten ready to learn. Reach Out and Read Kansas City (ROR-KC) is a Reading Is Fundamental program and a regional affiliate of the national Reach Out and Read (ROR). ROR-KC partners with 43 clinics in metropolitan Kansas City and is the area’s only medically-based early literacy program reaching at-risk children from infancy to age five. 73 percent of the children served by the ROR-KC program come from low-income families. ROR-KC annually distributes over 65,000 free, new books to approximately 24,000 children in the Kansas City area. Books are available in 21 different languages to meet the diverse needs of the children being served. Pam lives in Shawnee, KS with her husband, Will, and daughter, Rebekah (age 8). Pam is thrilled that Rebekah’s favorite author is Beverly Cleary—so much so that Klickitat Street and the Ramona statue were the highlights of a recent family vacation to Portland, Oregon!
RIF volunteer, Shelli Lockhart, Fox 4 TV reporter, was excited to celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday by reading to the children at Operation Breakthrough at St. Vincent's Family Service Center in Kansas City, Missouri.
Iowa Ambassador, Amanda Mart, is the Head Start Administrative Secretary for Upper Des Moines Opportunity Inc. (UDMO) and has been coordinating RIF for a year and a half. Each year, UDMO Head Start serves 328 children in eight counties and is expanding in two of them. With the help of partnering organizations, UDMO serves a total of 573 children with RIF funds. Each classroom has a teacher, assistant teacher, and home visitor who help facilitate the RIF book distribution parties three times a year. Parents and volunteers are always invited to attend the book distribution event and help children pick out their books to take home. Amanda and UDMO Head Start invite volunteers to become special, year-round classroom readers. Once a year, UDMO Head Start sends out a special RIF newsletter that explains what their program is all about and asks for donations from local businesses and clubs, while staff members regularly attend community meetings to share information about their RIF program and engage new volunteers. What a team effort!
An Upper Des Moines Opportunity Head Start teacher reads a featured RIF book to RIF children and parents from her class.
Happy RIF Ambassador Tuesday from our new RIF headquarters at 1255 23rd Street. While we might be busy settling into our new digs here at RIF, we can’t forget about meeting some great RIF ambassadors from Missouri and New Hampshire.
Missouri RIF Ambassador Shanna Smith, has been with the organization for over six years and started out as a Head Start teacher before taking on the role of Family Partnership Specialist. Shanna volunteered with the local public schools RIF program for two years prior to joining OACAC Head Start and believes that the earlier you start reading to young children and expose them to books, the earlier they establish critical language comprehension skills. Shanna believes strongly in the OACAC Head Start program as well as their philosophy of personal communication with families and their children. She loves that OACAC Head Start encourages parents to become involved in their child’s reading early in their education—the organization encourages families to set aside a specific evening during the week for family reading or 15 minutes after dinner on selective nights for family reading time. As a happily married mother of two and one on the way, Shanna and her husband have instilled literacy into their own children. She says it’s rewarding to witness their kids making the choice to pick up a book on their own—it provides such a sense of accomplishment.
Local high school students dressed up as Wizard of Oz characters, read and dance for Ozarks Area Community Action Corporation Head Start students.
New Hampshire RIF Ambassador Karen Moyer, began the first literacy program at Rockingham Community Action (RCA) in Rockingham County, N.H., in 1989, called “The Gift of Reading of NH.” A collaboration with RCA’s WIC Program and two local libraries in Rockingham County, this early book distribution program aimed to benefit low-income WIC and Head Start children. The program expanded to 25 libraries throughout the county, and years later RIF funding became available, which provided the opportunity to serve their Head Start, WIC Program, and all the children participating in their Tales to Go traveling literacy van program. They currently provide two to three distributions per year for each child, depending on the program, and distribute up to 7,000 books per year. Karen lives in Exeter, N.H., with her husband Herb, a teacher, and their cat Sasha. Their children and grandchildren live in Florida and New Hampshire. They are expecting two more grandchildren (twins!)—more children to read to and purchase books for! Congratulations Karen and family.
Local weaver, Sarah Haskell, helps RIF kids weave as part of a special motivational activity for the Rockingham Community Action RIF program in Portsmouth, N.H.
Hopefully the flowers have started blooming where our next RIF ambassadors share the joy of reading–the great states of Alaska and Colorado!
Alaska RIF Ambassador, Shannon Clouse, has been an educator for 12 years. She taught in the southwest village of New Stuyahok for seven years before becoming the media specialist for Southwest Region Schools (SWRS). For the past four years, Shannon has coordinated the RIF program for the eight schools that comprise SWRS. SWRS covers a vast geographic area, but serves a small population of students. Southwest Region, which is only accessible by plane or boat, covers approximately 22,000 square miles and is roughly the size of West Virginia. Shannon was born and raised in Dillingham, Alaska and received her Bachelor’s degree at Adams State College in Colorado and a Master of Arts degree in Language and Literacy from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She taught grades first to fifth, took some time away from the classroom, and on her return, stepped into a new career as a media specialist. She is actively involved with the Friends of the Library in Dillingham as well as serving as chair of the local library advisory board. Shannon has two small children who both love to read, which melts their mother’s heart. As an enthusiastic reader and a staunch promoter of literacy, Shannon is excited to represent Alaska, “The Last Frontier” for RIF this year as the Alaska RIF ambassador.
Colorado RIF Ambassador, Jennifer Pember, has been a teacher for 13 years and the RIF coordinator for the past seven at South Elementary School in Brighton, Colo. Currently, she is a Title 1 teacher and instructional coach and understands the tremendous gift that RIF provides as she watches the South students choose books to share with friends and family. Motivation for reading came easily to Jen as she devoured books like Little House on the Prairie; it is inspiring for her to build that same love of reading in her students. Jen owes much of her program’s success to the amazing volunteers and parents at her school. She believes that planning her RIF events is fun because everyone on her RIF committee has a creative spirit and can-do attitude. Each RIF book distribution is a highly anticipated community event where the students may be reading books or visiting with a Mexican rodeo cowboy at Cowboy RIFic Night. In 2006, South Elementary School was recognized as a recipient of RIF’s Program Excellence Honors. Jen enjoys playing golf, traveling, hiking in the beautiful Colorado mountains, and making trips to the library with daughters Treya and Carson.
Our next two RIF ambassadors might live miles apart and border a great lake and an ocean, but they both love working with the children and families in their local communities in New Jersey and Minnesota.
Minnesota RIF Ambassador, Martha French, has been the RIF coordinator for the White Earth Head Start program for the past eight years. She grew up and lives on the White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota and is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Martha truly enjoys working with children, especially preschoolers—she has worked at White Earth Head Start for the past 18 years, after starting out as a bus driver, teacher’s aide, assistant teacher, lead teacher, and now serving as a program coordinator. Specializing in multicultural education and literacy, Martha helps the teaching staff with curriculum and lesson planning in these areas.
The majority of the children at White Earth are of the Anishinabe/Ojibwe culture, but Martha was, initially, unable to find any curriculum material on this subject for preschoolers. As a result, she has developed an Anishinabe/Ojibwe curriculum for White Earth Head Start and incorporates some of the stories she heard as a child into the program. Martha strongly believes that books and stories are important to a child’s education and she is excited to include RIF in the White Earth Head Start program. She feels fortunate to have the perfect job: teaching preschoolers and sharing a love of books.
Upon graduation from William Paterson College in 1971, New Jersey RIF Ambassador, Dennis Vroegindewey was hired by the Paterson Public School District and has dedicated his career to educating the youth of the city. He has served as a middle school teacher, coordinator of the District teacher resource center, supervisor of libraries and language arts, and currently works as director of instructional technology and library media services. One of his major accomplishments has been the growth of the Paterson Public School Library program from three locations in 1991 to 39 today. Mr. Vroegindewey manages 35 librarians who serve as school-site RIF coordinators and provide the enthusiasm and hands-on work to make each program successful. More than 33,000 books are distributed each year to approximately 10,000 students. He recently made the decision to serve students in grades 5-9 due to low-literacy scores on high stakes tests and is thrilled when librarians report that teens get excited during book distributions. Dennis’s favorite hobby is reading (no surprise here) and enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters, all of whom love reading and drama.
Bosa Mijaljevic, School Librarian and RIF site coordinator for BUILD Academy in Paterson, New Jersey, and David Smith and Ben Woodworth of Scholastic are all smiles during a recent RIF distribution where Clifford donated one of his plush friends to help out at their new school library.
Nebraska RIF ambassador, Janel Keyes, is the media specialist at Howard Elementary in Grand Island, Neb., which has been a RIF school since 1984. Since RIF came to Howard Elementary, there have been several coordinators and media specialists. Janel was involved as a RIF volunteer for several years before becoming the official coordinator in 2008. “Howard students love to read,” said Janel. “But many children here have no books of their own.” This year, the first distribution was coordinated with Red Ribbon Week—the theme was “Follow Me, I’m Drug Free.” One day during RIF week, students wrote out their life goals and how reading and school can help the students achieve them. In the classrooms, Janel ensures that teachers are involved with various author studies, while students read and vote for state award books. “Guest readers have always been welcome here at Howard,” said Janel. “Students absolutely LOVE it when popular authors and illustrators visit. Howard students love reading!”
West Virginia veteran teacher and RIF ambassador, Lois Meadows, would never have imagined in 1992 that in 2009, she would be running five school-based RIF programs. After meeting RIF representatives at a reading conference in 1992, Lois was determined to secure a RIF grant for her local Wood County Reading Council in Parkersburg, W.V. After a few years, her first grant was approved and she began working with a few Title I schools in Wood County. At first, Lois could only serve the kindergarten classes at three schools, but she has since brought RIF to more than 1,000 students, K-5, in four Title I schools. When she wrote her grant for the Wood County Reading Council, she also wrote a second RIF grant for her own Emerson Elementary School. Eight years ago, that grant was approved and she now serves an additional 400 students! As a RIF volunteer for more than 15 years, Lois has been able to experience the joy RIF books have brought to children when they choose their free book at book distributions. After 35 years of teaching, Lois continues to bring the joy of reading to the children in her community. Thank you, Lois!
In 2001, 
Upon graduation from William Paterson College in 1971, 
