Literacy Leads...

"As a United Way Partner, Literacy Volunteers and the adult learners we support benefit directly from the campaign funds raised each and every year. Thank you United Way!

Literacy leads to opportunity- for adult learners like Mia, from Mexico, now a permanent resident in Essex County. By interviewing her, assessing her English skills, and matching her with a professional trained volunteer tutor, we give her the opportunity to reach her personal goal of learning how to speak, read, write, and communicate in English.

Literacy leads to opportunity- for county residents like Russ, who dropped out of high school in 10th grade, took the GED, and passed everything except for the writing portion. He knew he had re-take this portion when he found out the GED would be changing in January of 2014. He and his tutor worked diligently to improve his writing, especially organizing his thoughts, putting them on paper, and editing. When he took the exam again in October, he had passed the writing section, and to our surprise, his scores exceeded all other GED categories including math, science, and social studies.

Literacy lead to opportunity- for qualified and trained inmates at local correctional facilities to provide small-group tutoring to other inmates whose reading and math scores are below a 5th grade reading level. As one inmate tutor put it, "I can shed some of prison's emotional burden by finding a purpose- something to be passionate about and provide structure to my days... it's challenging work but group learning stimulates a cooperative atmosphere where knowledge thrives."