I don't think a correction is necessary. Both parts of the sentence are already in the present tense. Plus, the use of "us" in the beginning of the sentence indicates a personal attachment.
The children in the district are so poor and some of them so pathetic that I suppose the struggle to live has been so great you could not think much about what you fed the mind, but I came away feeling that right there, in one of the biggest and richest states in the country, we had a big area that needed books and needed libraries to help these schools in the education of the children, and, even more, to help the whole community to learn to live through their minds.
He did like anyone who was a montage
The importance would be all the time and effort he put into it but know that he is dead he would have someone to take over