This summer, RIF teamed up with Verizon Foundation’s Thinkfinity and Broadway star Fantasia Barrino to READ FOR CHANGE, a campaign in support of United We Serve challenging Americans across the country to collectively log 3 million minutes of reading with children by September 11, 2009. Today, we are excited to announce that WE DID IT!!!
THANK YOU for helping us reach and surpass the goal of logging 3,059,440 minutes of reading with children at home and in our communities. This success has helped raise awareness about the impact of children’s literacy on the long-term economic health of the country. As a special thank you, five participants will be selected by random drawing to receive a children’s book collection, as well as the opportunity to select a school in their community to receive a book collection. All winners will be notified by email on or before Oct 15. Good luck and thanks again!
So I was talking with a friend about the muggy, rainy environment in DC and area today; she asked if I had seen the YouTube South Street Seaport number…I said no, she sent it, and now I share it with you as it made me smile! And now the sun has even peaked through a couple of times. Enjoy!
Whether raining or shining where you are, take advantage of a Sunday afternoon/early evening to read with a child and log your minutes at Read for Change.
As we close United We Serve’s Education Week, I challenge you to be among the RIF volunteers helping children Read for Change in the coming year. Let me share with you a valuable resource as you look for a RIF program near you.
The RIF Locator Map helps potential volunteers find RIF program sites in their area and provides contact links to RIF coordinators. You simply fill out the template provided and a RIF coordinator should contact you soon about any potential volunteer opportunities. You can also find state-by-state information about RIF programs and view short videos about select RIF programs and events. Matching willing volunteers to RIF programs has never been easier. Should you have questions or hit a snag of some kind in locating a program, please contact RIF at our toll-free number 877.RIF.READ or contactus@rif.org.
Keep reading with children and logging your minutes at Read for Change: remember, 3 million minutes by September 11 – the children need us!
It is day 4 of United We Serve’s Education Week; so far this week I have highlighted for you RIF’s 2009 Volunteers of the Year. Today I call your attention to one of the many organizations that provides groups of volunteers to support RIF Programs.
Since 2004, Macy’s Partners in Time program has provided volunteers for numerous RIF events where they assist in the distribution of books, read to children and share with families the importance of early reading with young children. FESTIBA (Festival of International Books and Arts) in South Texas was one of the events where it would not have been possible without the support of Macy’s Partners in Time volunteers!
And here you can see Macy’s employees from Lakewood, California volunteering at a RIF distribution in nearby Long Beach.
RIF applauds Partners in Time and all volunteers who are united in serving the children and families across the country. Thank you!
Happy Reading all summer long, visit Read for Change and log minutes now!
Day three of United We Serve/Education Week: RIF introduces you today to another 2009 RIF Volunteer of the Year: Barbara Sovereign, a retired teacher and reading specialist from Monterey, California. Barbara has been a member of Delta Kappa Gamma Society, a professional honor society of women educators, since 1983. She became a volunteer reader for its local Reading Is Fundamental program in 1998. And in 1999 she became the co-coordinator of the local RIF program. Barbara coordinates the distribution of 5,700 books each year, and says she knows the books are important to the kids judging by the excitement generated when the students learn they get to keep the books!
Barbara not only enjoys her time reading with kids, but also loves hearing from the many volunteers she recruits to read for her RIF programs. She likes to quote a local RIF volunteer who says, “There are few better ways to start your day than being the central object of a group hug by 20 first graders!”
Happy Reading all summer long, visit Read for Change and log minutes now!
Hello! It is Day Two of Education Week for President Obama’s United We Serve initiative. As noted yesterday, RIF has implemented Read for Change as one response to this initiative, and I again invited you to log your minutes reading with children!
We are also featuring our 2009 RIF Volunteers of the Year during this special week; yesterday I introduced you to Jalonda. Today meet Elrene “Elke” Davis. Elke has spent the past 37 years as library media specialist, classroom teacher and family literacy coordinator in Estill County, Ky. She has served as an advocate and volunteer for literacy on committees, been an Appalachian storyteller, served as a guest reader, and shown up as a costumed character with props.
In 1996, Elke became the RIF coordinator for the Estill County Board of Education. Her book distributions are highly anticipated events where children preschool to 8th grade have the opportunity to choose their own free book three times a year and experience the excitement of various reading activities.
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