Rasco From RIF

THE ROOTS OF RIF: Memories of Margaret McNamara

November 3rd, 2009

Margaret McNamara Pastor is the daughter of RIF Founder Margaret McNamara and a current member of RIF’s Board of Directors.  Today on RIF’s 43rd birthday she shares memories of her mother and RIF.

My mom, Margaret McNamara, loved to read to me, my brother and my sister, and everyone else.  By reading to us, my mom transformed us into voracious readers.  She worked in the poorer communities in Washington tutoring young people, and she began to notice they were bored and had no motivation to read on their own.

One morning, a simple idea leaped into her brain, and RIF is the child of that idea.  If children were going to have fun in the world and become contributing members of society, they needed to enjoy a lifetime of reading.  These books should relate to their daily lives, and most importantly, the children needed to have their own books.  She believed that if you put books in the hands and the homes of children, this would lead to a life-long love of reading and contribute to a fulfilling life.

Mother had a great love of people, particularly children.  She was full of life and energy and felt anything was possible.  At base, she believed people were good at heart, and she felt that misfortune and deprivation could be altered.  On top of all this, she was persistent to the point of being relentless, particularly on behalf a good cause.  RIF is here today because of her determination, and it has grown over 43 years, recruiting thousands of volunteers and millions of RIF kids, because its staff has demonstrated the same striving to improve young people’s lives as she did.

At the beginning, there were few children’s books in paperback.  Few books had stories of children of different ethnicities and cultures;  few books told the narrative of different families; and there were few publishers or distributors who  believed that a free book could make a whole lot of difference in motivating children to read.  It was a long slog in the early years.   Doors were not easily opened, and a new way of approaching reading motivation was not immediately embraced.  But Mother had many crusaders at her side that gave their energy and time to the creation of RIF:  Kay Lumley, Barbara Atkinson, Mary Schuman Eddy, Ruth Graves, Lynda Johnson Robb, Jean Sisco, Anne Richardson, Loretta Barrett, Arthur White and so many others.

The “RIF bookmobile” was my mom’s dream brought to life.  In 1967, Ford Motor Company donated a white van fitted with bookshelves.  This allowed the books to be shared with several schools during the summers.  I never was able to see her with the bookmobile, but I thought this was a wonderful photo of her with Barbara Atkinson and a local musician.  Children and volunteers joined together to paint the first bookmobile with a V and a child sitting in the middle reading a book.  The RIF bookmobile became almost as well known as the ice cream truck.  Malcolm Taylor, one of the drivers, was like the Pied Piper.  When the children heard the “ooga ooga” of his horn, they’d run behind the truck to the next stop.  Initially he did the distributions without much help, and he cared for the children like a father, sometimes dipping into his own resources to provide for special needs.  Later, he’d do five locations a day, and volunteers met the van and would read with children and sometimes do arts and crafts as well as other special projects.

Mom loved children.  She wanted to open their lives to the world through reading and fun.  She was a prankster and loved a good time.  She had a great sense of humor and like the seven dwarfs, she loved to whistle while she worked.  She filled my early life with stories;  every night before bed we would read a Golden Book or children’s classic that she had ordered through the mail.  Mom was always full of ideas for plays, building sets and making costumes.  We sold tickets for our plays to the neighborhood.  On my Halloween birthday she would appear in costume, generally as a witch or ghost, and tell stories with props, including grapes for witch eyes, cold spaghetti for hair and on one occasion she dressed as a Charles Addams character with a live baby alligator on her arm.  Mom loved the written word.  When away from home I would receive manila envelopes filled with articles, which I “must read” with Mom’s comments in the margins about people, politics, the arts, poverty, children, poetry, and quotes from all manner of people.

When she was not with children and family, she was working as a volunteer for the PTA, the Polio Foundation, the League of Women Voters, the Juvenile Court Advisory Council, and many other national and public service groups when she moved to D. C.   This work strengthened her belief that volunteers can be as productive as any business or government professional.  Her belief was validated.  Thousands of RIF volunteers have become the centerpiece of 18,000 RIF sites in 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the territories.  She would be particularly proud to know that many RIF kids have passed along their love and dedication to RIF to their children and grandchildren.  It is an amazing legacy.

In celebration of RIF’s 40th birthday in 2006, when I spoke with Michel Martin on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, many RIF kids now in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s called in to the station to tell their stories and to say they still have their RIF books.  Now that is a statement about the power of one woman’s idea that bore fruit and inspired thousands of people to plant new trees of books for millions of children.

Filed under: MEMORY MONDAY, RIF 43rd Birthday, RIF Board, RIF History