Reading Is Fundamental Pittsburgh

Nearly two-thirds of low-income families do not own any books for their children. Reading Is FUNdamental Pittsburgh addresses this critical need by providing children with access to self-selected books, creating positive environments that motivate children to develop a lifelong love of reading, and engaging families in literacy practices in the home. RIF Pittsburgh is dedicated to reducing the literacy gap in our community and fostering a lifelong love of reading in the children we serve. Our Books for Keeps program engages children in 3-5 Reading Celebrations each year, where they participate in a fun, motivational activity and get to select a book to take home and keep. Our Read to Your Family program works to introduce good literacy practices into the home and provides incentives and recognition for children and families to read together. The Everybody Wins! program is a lunchtime literacy, mentoring program that pairs community volunteers with students to share lunch, conversation and good books once a week. The Storymobile is a library-on-wheels taking books and literacy resources to early childhood centers and public housing communities across Pittsburgh. This past year, we provided nearly 84,000 books to the more than 15,000 children and families served through all our programs, plus more than 8,000 at community events.