“I’ve been looking for this my whole life”
Several years ago, Colette, a Bronx native in her 50’s, stood up in church and asked if anyone could help her learn to read. It had been her New Year’s Resolution to finally learn, but she had hit dead ends in her search for a program. Standing up in church was an act of desperation and bravery.
By sheer coincidence, a member of Colette’s church worked with me and put us in touch with each other.
Over the phone later that week I explained the program to Colette: we would start from the very beginning; we would go at her pace; and that we use the most effective method for teaching reading. As I spoke, Colette began sobbing. “I’ve been looking for this my whole life,” she said.
It shouldn’t be this difficult for the 36 million American adults who are functionally illiterate to find an effective, working program.
As we build the Volunteer Literacy Project, one of our biggest challenges is making our program accessible to students. We can’t rely on the magnificent coincidence that put us in touch with Colette. It needs to be easy for potential students to learn about us and to get started learning to read.
Currently we are setting up programs in Brooklyn schools to serve the parents of the student body. Parents will drop off their children at school and then head straight to the computer lab to meet on Zoom with their volunteer tutors. We hope to start this program in the next couple of weeks. We can’t wait!
Here are some other milestones we’ve crossed so far in our start-up year (all volunteer-driven):
- Gained 501-c3 status
- Recruited and trained our first official group of VLP volunteers
- Created a logo and redesigned the lesson plans to make them more accessible than ever
- Created our website and other essential technical infrastructure
Meanwhile, we continue working with our long-standing team of volunteer and students.
We hear from our volunteers and our donors that you are proud to be part of this program. We are proud too — and so thrilled to have your support. We can only do this together.
I’ll keep you updated as we continue to build this program. If you haven’t donated yet, please consider doing so now. Every donation makes a difference.
Cheers and gratitude to you all!