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!