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Gary Zimmerman, COSBE chairman, enthusiastically supports RIF and COSBE’s support of the program; “This money was raised dollar by dollar to support a cause all small business owners can believe in—helping students become better prepared for their futures.”
With this kind of local support, the students of Phillis Wheatley Elementary are sure to enjoy lots more books for years to come! |
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- March 2004 (Richland School District One - May 2004 (Jean Dean RIF) - September 2005 (Dallas ISD) - October 2005 (Michigan programs) - November 2005 (Arctic Light RIF) - January 2006 (300 Millionth Book) - May 2006 (World's Largest Book Distribution) We're here to help!
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Crowds of smiling children, plenty of volunteers, and, most importantly, hundreds of books! It’s a RIF distribution at Phillis Wheatley Elementary School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While this school has been a RIF program for years, now the students have even more to be excited about! Thanks to the generosity of the Council of Small Business Executives (COSBE), these lucky RIF kids will have not three but five book distributions this year! 
COSBE has been supporting this RIF program since 1994, but three years ago, the program became fully locally funded. Beth Puestow, RIF coordinator at Phillis Wheatley, says that “COSBE and Wheatley students and staff have a personal relationship. The students look forward to having the members in the building during RIF distributions, and as a thank-you to COSBE, the students created a RIF quilt, which is on display in COSBE’s office.” The school also makes it a point to keep COSBE updated on the students’ progress, especially in terms of their reading growth. COSBE has played such a key role in the school that they even renamed the library in their honor!
The entire community has truly embraced the RIF program. In addition to the financial support from COSBE, parents are very involved in the RIF program. Through the increased private funding, Wheatley has been able to have parent/child distributions during conferences, in addition to five regular RIF distributions. Parents who attend can then come in and pick out a book to take home to their child. These conferences included time for sharing at-home reading activities and a discussion period for parents to ask questions about helping their child enjoy reading.
