Robbi Scharfe · 2000 Honoree

For over twenty years, until her recent retirement, Robbi Scharfe was the spirit of the children’s reading room in the Southeast library. She put up the posters, watered the plants, read stories to preschoolers, found books for the older children and answered a steady stream of questions. She was always ready to recommend a good book.

Robbi grew up in Germany, raised by her grandmother, a solitary but not a lonely child. She loved playing outside and riding horses but was also an avid reader. “I read my books ten or twenty times,” she said, remembering that there was no public library nearby.

When she came toWashington in her early twenties, she fell in love with the city and after returning to Germany for a teaching course, came back here to stay. For a few years she worked on the D.C. public library Bookmobile which went all over the city, then came to the library in Southeast, where she felt immediately at home.

Love of books is just part of what Robbi brought to her work at the library; the other part was her warm personality and love of children. She was always eager to talk to them, not just about school but about their pets, their artwork, their families. She loved helping and they responded. “It’s not every job where you can come in and often find a love note on your desk in the morning,” she laughs. She is fondly remembered by a whole generation of Capitol Hill kids.

In retirement Robbi is not idle. She volunteers at a library in Virginia, cooks, gardens, does art projects, tends her house and, of course, reads.