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TRIBUTE TO DUNCAN McDOUGALL

Speaker
W000800
Subject
W000800
Source
Congressional Record · original
Chamber
senate
Published
Monday, March 31, 2025

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Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 57 (Monday, March 31, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 57 (Monday, March 31, 2025)] [Senate] [Pages S2089-S2090] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] TRIBUTE TO DUNCAN McDOUGALL Mr. WELCH. Madam President, I rise today to recognize Duncan McDougall, who stepped down as the executive director of the Children's Literacy Foundation after 25 years leading the nonprofit organization that he founded. Duncan started CLiF in his garage in Waterbury Center, VT, in 1998. His mission was to inspire a love of reading and writing among underserved, at-risk, rural children in Vermont and New Hampshire. [[Page S2090]] A graduate of Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, Duncan combined his business…

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Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 57 (Monday, March 31, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 57 (Monday, March 31, 2025)] [Senate] [Pages S2089-S2090] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] TRIBUTE TO DUNCAN McDOUGALL Mr. WELCH. Madam President, I rise today to recognize Duncan McDougall, who stepped down as the executive director of the Children's Literacy Foundation after 25 years leading the nonprofit organization that he founded. Duncan started CLiF in his garage in Waterbury Center, VT, in 1998. His mission was to inspire a love of reading and writing among underserved, at-risk, rural children in Vermont and New Hampshire. [[Page S2090]] A graduate of Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, Duncan combined his business experience as a management consultant with his vision to help under-resourced children to make CLiF self-sustaining within its first year of operations. CLiF is proud to be an entirely community- supported organization, through the private donations of more than 600 donors each year and receives no State or Federal funds. Before starting CLiF, Duncan spent 6 months visiting local communities, talking to people about his idea, and getting their feedback. One of the first board members was a woman who had served as a superintendent in a very small rural school district in northern New Hampshire. Her insights into how CLiF could broaden their impact and what the kids really needed were key. Initially, CLiF considered accepting donations of used children's books to distribute. The former superintendent rejected that idea because the children they were dealing with come from underserved families and always got hand-me- downs. New books would be exciting for these children. She was right. From the beginning, the board members worked as a genuine team with a hands-on approach. In addition to board meetings, they sorted books, and helped deliver them to rural public libraries; they remained on site, giving presentations and reading from the donated books, as well as engaging the librarians to become part of the process. Through encouragement and guidance from CLiF, public libraries worked with their local schools, something that was new to many of those communities; everyone benefited. When CLiF showed up at a library or community center, the whole town knew about it. Duncan, after dealing with librarians in these small communities, realized how isolated they were. So he came up with the idea of CLiF hosting a rural librarian's conference that CLiF underwrote; the only cost to the librarians was transportation. Suddenly, these librarians had a community--a real community--to share ideas and support. And that is what CLiF is now: a community-building organization that uses books for kids as a common denominator. In the early days Duncan would load up his car with donated new books and drive to sites all over Vermont and New Hampshire with free books for children. Since those first days, CLiF has served over 375,000 children in 430 communities and has distributed more than $10 million in new books. Today, CLiF's community partners offer more than 1,000 literacy events per year in public elementary schools, libraries, preschools, afterschool programs, community centers, low-income housing sites, and correctional facilities, among others. CLiF is a living example of Duncan's belief that change should happen from the ground up. I congratulate Duncan McDougall on a job well done. ____________________

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