From commutes to appointments to honey-do lists and housekeeping to family time and friends time, we all have busy lives. And that’s just a slice of life.

Here’s a snapshot of what life looks like at RIF National. Just a few highlights from the last couple of weeks …

• Helping more than 400 children and their military parents at Fort Bragg make videos of mom or dad reading aloud before they deploy to Afghanistan.
• Hosting 1,000 children, plus their parents, for a reading celebration for low-income families at the Stepping Stones Museum for Children in Norwalk.
• Giving more than 1,000 families living in poverty in the Des Moines area a similar first-time, free trip to the Science Center of Iowa. And providing food to take home for the weekend, a luxury for many of them.

Plus, sending all 2,400 children home with free books and reading activities to keep the magic of books alive beyond these experiences.

For 45 years, we’ve been putting books in the hands of kids who need them most. But we do much more than that.

We’ve helped school libraries ravaged by storms build back their book collections. We’ve given tools to bilingual families helping their children learn to read. We’ve provided curriculum for teachers to use in the classroom and activities for families to use at home.

We truly believe in the power of books. And we believe that we can make just about anything happen when Book People Unite.

Take the pledge and we’ll keep you posted on all of RIF’s major life events.