First Book’s mission is to provide brand new books to programs serving children from low-income families. But we couldn’t get books to kids without the tremendous support of our nonprofit partners who work directly with children in need.
Today, two of our partners, Reading is Fundamental, the nation’s largest children’s literacy organization, and Reach Out and Read, an organization that provides books to children in pediatric exam rooms, are at risk of losing critical federal funding.
Each year, congress votes to earmark a portion of the U.S. Department of Education’s budget for programs like Reach Out and Read and Reading is Fundamental. This year, however, that funding is in jeopardy. Without it, these programs will have to work even harder to reach the millions of children in need of books to prepare them for success in school and beyond.
These groups need your help. To learn how you can support these programs in their effort to secure continued funding, visit Reading is Fundamental’s Advocacy Center.
PS – You can read a great column about RIF’s endangered funding on The Huffington Post.