For the third year, RIF and US Airways have teamed up for the “Fly with US. Read with Kids.®” campaign to promote the importance of reading with children.
If you’ve participated in the past, you know that a very fun part of this campaign is the Read with Kids Challenge, where participants log the number of minutes they spend reading to children. This year, our nationwide goal is reading with kids for 10 million minutes between September 1 and October 31. Think of the incredible benefits kids will receive by spending quality time with you and some good books!
When you join the Challenge and begin logging your minutes, you’ll be eligible to win weekly prizes, travel gift cards, and the grand prize of a US Airways Vacations package to the Walt Disney World® Resort. In addition, if you make a donation to RIF through the campaign, you can receive up to 5,000 Dividend Miles from US Airways. And free downloadable resources, like bookmarks featuring Maisy our campaign “Spokesmouse,” can help you spread the word to your friends and family.
As you can see, there’s a great deal to take advantage of in this campaign. Welcome aboard, and enjoy some wonderful reading adventures with the children in your life.
Now through June 30, RIF and Borden Milk are hosting a children’s art contest to celebrate the fun of reading! The contest theme, “Elsie’s Reading Adventures” is based on Borden Milk’s beloved mascot, Elsie the Cow, who loves to read to her children.
Children ages 6-12 in Texas and Louisiana can win a $1,000 literacy grant for their school or RIF program, a supply of Borden milk for the year, and many other fun prizes.
We encourage parents and kids to visit www.bordenonline.com or www.elsiesartcontest.com to learn more and to download the entry form. Children can then submit an original piece of artwork inspired by the theme “Elsie the Cow’s Reading Adventures.” One completed entry form per child is required. If you have any questions, email RIF at elsie@rif.org.
One winner will be selected from each of the following cities in Texas : Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Laredo, McAllen, San Antonio, and Texarkana and the following cities in Louisiana: Baton Rouge and Lafayette.
RIF is excited to be working with a new partner, the Oriental Trading Company, and even more excited to announce what this new partnership means for all of our coordinators out there—a chance to win free stuff!
Starting today, all current RIF coordinators are eligible to submit an entry form for the Dream RIF Giveaway. Just tell us about your program and you’ll be entered to win one of 25 $500 Oriental Trading gift cards. Imagine how far that money could go toward making a RIF distribution prior to October 31, 2010 a real showstopper! All site and program coordinators, as well as authorizing officials, are invited to participate. This Dream RIF Giveaway is the initial promotion with our first-ever motivational activity partner; keep an eye out for more great opportunities to come!
Each month at the All-Staff meeting, RIF honors our employees for gold star customer service as well as makes awards quarterly for the embodiment of our founders’ passion for improving the language and literacy skills of young children. This week awards were presented for the month of February as well as the quarter 2 McNamara Award a month early due to the unique nominations we received.
The Gold Star of Customer Service was presented for the month of February to Lisa Estrin who recently moved into a new role as Special Initiatives Coordinator. In that position Lisa had to hit the ground running as two projects were at critical junctures: RIF Ambassadors and Volunteer of the Year Awards (VOYA). She jumped in and got to work immediately ensuring that these important volunteer engagement efforts continued seamlessly. On top of that she has overseen a process that drew a record number of VOYA nominations! Thank you, Lisa!
I mentioned in the opening paragraph “unique nominations” received for the quarterly McNamara Award for quarter 2. Normally our nominations come from internal staff; however, during the recent VOYA nominating period a DC RIF coordinator at an elementary school nominated two RIF employees as Community Volunteers of the Year for the national competition! Quite frankly we had never anticipated such nominations but knew immediately we could not truthfully consider internal candidates for VOYA. However, the senior managers at RIF felt these employees deserved a special award for the recognition this coordinator gave them. Congratulations to Henry Crawford and Kathryn Jackson!
Henry Crawford according to the coordinator’s nominating statement “has volunteered in more than one school in which I have served as the school librarian. He is always willing to read stories. I admire his commitment to children. He is always willing to assist with the learning activities with the students no matter what grade level…. he has chosen to come and enhance the reading of our children.” Great job, Henry!
The same coordinator wrote about Kathryn Jackson that she “has been a devoted RIF volunteer. She is very creative in setting up the RIF day distribution activities. She is always willing to go beyond what is required to make a successful distribution day. I admire her efforts when she engages every single student in total participation for the reading activities. She clearly enjoys promoting reading.” Go, Kathryn!
I am sorry Kathryn was out of the office and unable to join Lisa, Henry and me as we donned special reading hats and enjoyed a celebratory story!
TA-DA! Beat the drum, sound the trumpet, twirl the flags!
RIF’s Ambassadors representing all states and territories were asked to take a photo wishing RIF a Happy 43rd birthday! The winners are shared here with you as we approach Tuesday, November 3 which is birthday time! Each winning RIF program received a cash prize to have a birthday party or purchase other RIF-related items as well as each winning site will receive a Multicultural Book Collection.
Congratulations to the winners, thank you for participating in this special celebration!
GRAND PRIZE WINNER
Arctic Light Elementary School
Fort Wainwright, Alaska
Ambassador Donna Morrow
MOST FUN
Two winners in this category!
Richland County School District 1
Columbia, South Carolina
Ambassador Ida Thompson
Boston Public Schools
Harvard Kent School
Boston, Massachusetts
Ambassador Kathleen Sullivan
MOST CREATIVE
Chief Shikellamy Elementary
Sunbury, Pennsylvania
Ambassador Lisa Mertz
HAPPIEST READERS
AKA Sorority Delta Lambda Omega
Shreveport, Louisiana
Ambassador Lueburda Jamison Myers
BEST USE OF BOOKS
RIF of Pensacola
Pensacola, Florida
Ambassador Elaine Site
Congratulations again to the winners and Happy Birthday to RIF!
Yesterday, Macy’s held its 4th Annual Spelling Bee Grand Finale hosted by RIF. The event took place just outside of Macy’s Herald Square store in New York City.Twenty-six finalists from spelling bees held in Macy’s stores throughout the country were vying for the title of National Winner. The competition was intense as the participants carefully belted out each letter of “eco-friendly” words given by the judges. Alas, Shivani Angappan (9 yrs old from Bedford, MA) prevailed as the winner after successfully spelling “plateau” and “poinsettia” in the ninth round. Shivani received a $5,000 Grand Prize Kaplan Tutoring Scholarship and a $500 Grand Prize Scholastic Gift Certificate.
“Bee” sure to tune in to the CBS Early Show on Monday, September 28, 2009 to see the national winner show off her super spelling skills in a spell off with the Early Show anchors. Children and volunteers from a New York-based RIF Program will also be on the show’s plaza cheering the winner on!
At the regular monthly All-Staff meeting this week RIF started our ceremonies for closing the fiscal year on September 30. Each month we honor selected staff members with the President’s Award for Customer Service and then at the end of each quarter we also honor deserving staff with the McNamara Award. This latter award is named for our founder, Margaret McNamara, and the award is made to individuals who exhibit the spirit of Margy McNamara, a spirit of deep devotion and action toward children being able to readily access books and all that books and literacy can bring them. All staff members can nominate individuals for the awards which are decided by the senior management team who are not eligible for the awards. Book gift cards for both awards are given with McNamara awardees also receiving a Jefferson Cup engraved with Mr. Jefferson’s words to Mr. Adams “I cannot live without books.”
Pictured here in the lower right corner are some of the recent Customer Service award winners and some of the McNamara recipients are seen in the top photo. A complete listing for this quarter includes:
President’s Customer Service Award : Trish Heath, Mark Limm, Kim Nakashima, Layla Wright Contreras, Matt Wolf, Sue Ryan, Alex Howarth, Jonathan Hedgpeth, Nia McLean, Darryl Robinson, and Jeffrey Brown.
McNamara Award: Crystal Hemphill, Rebecca Chrystal-Armstrong, Rachel Hutt, Erika Ekdahl, Pati Carrada, Wendell Bassett, and Daniel Osborne.
Also at the meeting we honored those who had put forth “extra efforts” during the Macy’s Book a Brighter Future campaign during July and August. Some of those winners are shown in the lower left photo. There was also a great celebration and competition among staff teams simulating a Macy’s “new employee training”…we had teams vying for best gift wrapping, best packaging of clothing purchases, bargain hunters and “finding the right shoes for back to school for Carol Rasco.” A “great time was had by all” as they say in my hometown paper; and at the conclusion, a RIF favorite was served: cake and more cake!
I am pleased to be participating in the second annual BBAW this week with special postings scheduled each day related to the themes outlined by the oversight committee.
Today I am announcing RIF will be awarding a copy of THE ART OF READING published by RIF each day Monday through Friday of the special week. To win? Two ways: (1) Make a comment on a blog posting for the given day (midnight to midnight); and/or (2) Join the FeedBlitz notification system for Rasco from RIF. RIF will ship to a winner anywhere worldwide.
Winning a BBAW prize does not negate your comment or subscription to FeedBlitz from entering you in the month-long September contest related to the October 1 birthday of Rasco from RIF.
Make a comment on a Monday post or sign up for FeedBlitz on Monday and you may be drawn for a copy of THE ART OF READING with the announcement on Tuesday. The process starts again at midnight Tuesday and continues through the week. Anyone can enter, it is not limited to book bloggers.
Happy Book Bloggers Appreciation Week, Happy Reading!
Carol
One of the fun perks of this job is that I frequently get to rally people at public events for the cause of reading. But today’s event where I will ring the closing bell at the NASDAQ stock exchange in New York City to officially launch our Book A Brighter Future™ campaign with Macy’s will be especially fun. I would never have dreamed as I grew up in that small town in south Arkansas, reading in a corner of the basement of the public library on many hot, summer days that I would be at a big city stock exchange many summers later ringing the closing bell!
You can watch the whole thing live at 3:30 p.m. ET at NASDAQ MarketSite.
Stay tuned for more news about the campaign tomorrow.
At midnight tonight RIF will officially conclude the 2009 Read With Kids Challenge sponsored by US Airways. For the past three months, parents and other caring adults have been reading with kids and logging the minutes on our Million Minute Meter. The results have been overwhelming as more than 7,000 participants logged 10 million minutes read to children, far surpassing the initial goal of 5 million minutes read!
We couldn’t be happier with these results! We still have some final prizes to award—like the vacation for four to Walt Disney World® Resort and the lending library to go to a RIF program in honor of a winning team—but the most important prizes have already been given. Those are the precious minutes and hours that adult readers have given to the children in their lives. We encourage everyone to keep on giving. Stay tuned to hear more about how with our Summer Read for Change initiative. Also check the final results of the Read With Kids Challenge on www.readwithkidschallenge.com.
I want to thank everyone who participated—including our honorary team captains like Eric Carle, Jerry Seinfeld, Billy Crystal, Sandra Boynton, Russ Parr, Al Roker, Carmelo Anthony, and many more—for making this a huge success.
