The Springfield Area Reading Is Fundamental Association is pleased to announce the celebration of 40 years of distributing free pleasure reading books to local schoolchildren! The program endeavors to promote literacy by motivating children to read through providing them with book ownership.
During the past 40 years. the RIF program has distributed over 684,000 books to area students, who choose their books during three distributions during the school year, in November, February and May. The program was begun in 1978 as a collaborative effort between Springfield Public School District 186 and the Junior League of Springfield. According to the front page of the March 29, 1979 State Journal-Register, RIF initially served all the city’s public schools and 11 private schools. RIF continues to serve all public elementay schools in Springfield, six parochial schools and six county schools. The participating schools are:
Addams Elementary School
Black Hawk Elementary School
Blessed Sacrament School
Butler Elementary School
Cathedral School
Christ the King School
Dubois Elementary School
Enos Elementary School
Fairview Elementary School
Farmingdale Elementary School
Feitshans Academy
Graham Elementary School
Harvard Park Elementary School
Hazel Dell Elementary School
Iles Elementary School
Laketown Elementary School
Lee Elementary School
Matheny-Withrow Elementary School
McClernand Elementary School
Owen Marsh Elementary School
Pleasant Plains Middle School
Ridgely Elementary School
Riverton Elementary School
Riverton Middle School
Rochester Elementary School 2-3
Rochester Intermediate School
Sandburg Elementary School
Southern View Elementary School
Spfld Ball Charter Elementary School
St. Aloysius School
St. Patrick School
Trinity Lutheran Elementary School
Vachel Lindsay Elementary School
Wilcox Elementary School
A brief history of the program is available on Facebook at Springfield Area Reading Is Fundamental – RIF. Today, the program in staffed entirely by volunteers and funded 100% through local donations. On Tuesday, April 24th, representatives from the 34 participating schools will select books at Hope Presbyterian Church, 2211 Wabash in Springfield, which generously donates space to the program. The books will be distributed to students at the individual schools over the following two weeks.
The Springfield Area Reading is Fundamental Program plans to continuing serving local schoolchildren indefinitely thanks to the strong support of our local funders!