It takes a lot of work to give one child three books.
Jean Dean Reading is Fundamental in Opelika has provided 75,000 books for 25,000 at-risk children in its 45 years.
The oldest children's literacy organization in the United States, RIF is a nationwide nonprofit that provides three books to children. Starting this year the organization will be losing much of its funding from federal grants.
"A third of our funding for many years would come through grants for national RIF because they were under the offices of the Department of Education," said Cathy Dean Gafford, executive director of Jean Dean RIF. "Congress deleted them from the budget last year, so we have effectively lost our ability to apply for a third of the funding we've used."
Jean Dean RIF was started by Gafford and her father, former Alabama Kiwanis Gov. Joe Dean, as a part of the Kiwanis International Young Children: Priority One Project. The program is named after his wife, Jean Torbert Dean, who died in 1990.
"We started it because we realized that there were children in the state who didn't have books of their own, and we thought it was important to help them in that regard," Gafford said.
Because of the loss of funding, Gafford said they are putting all their effort into additional fundraising.
"We are definitely in the fundraising mode," she said. "Our choice was to drop 8,000 kids or try to come up with the money in other ways. We just couldn't bring ourselves to drop the kids."
One upcoming fundraising effort is Run to Read, being held Saturday. One financial supporter of RIF and Run to Read is Auburn's chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.
"We'll be helping out volunteering, but a lot of our girls also participate in the run, so we give back by registering for it and volunteering," said Emily McDade, Kappa's philanthropy chair. "We want to help get the awareness out in the Greek community and through Auburn."
McDade said RIF is making huge efforts to make this run the best fundraiser yet in light of their financial struggle.
"If we can't make up that money in other ways, then there could be children eliminated from the program, which is very, very, very sad," said Harriette Huggins, Run to Read registration chair and RIF volunteer since 1995. "So we want to do our best to make this a bigger and better event that will put more dollars into the coffers."
McDade said her eyes have been opened to the work that goes into supporting a nonprofit like RIF.
"You think, 'Oh, come on now, everyone wants to give back to the community.' But it's just hard to get it all working together," McDade said. "Especially with RIF having those cuts, they don't have the same financial support to get the wheels spinning."
Huggins said she hopes the run will help RIF to not only raise funds, but bring visibility to the impact Jean Dean RIF has.
"There's the possibility of lighting a spark so a child can see bigger things in their life because they can read," Huggins said.
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