By Elana Yonah | Director of Advancement
Most people don't know that 40M American adults (1 in 4) do not read above a 7th grade-level. An inequitable number of them are Veterans.
Literacyworks Center (The Center) and CenterPoint have teamed up to support Veterans ensuring they have the basic literacy, numeracy, problem-solving skills critical to their prosperity and well being.
Since the Center opened in the Fall of 2015, we have had the opportunity to leverage scholarship awards for Veterans to master the basic skills to access career and technical knowledge. The Center is helping low-literacy, economic disadvantaged adults enroll and succeed by providing scholarships so they can overcome their persistence barriers such as childcare, transportation, tuition and supplies. Our support includes offering advice to help determine goals, defining the steps needed to achieve these goals plus mentoring in study skills. Often our students are intimidated by a lack of exposure to the formal school environment. Some are the first in their families to take college-level coursework.
The end goal is for these adults to acquire the skills to move on to college level career and technical courses or apprenticeship job training and ultimately on to quality, living wage employment
To date, since launching the Literacyworks Center, we’ve enrolled 69 students from Marin and Sonoma Counties. This first cohort of students comes from Center Point, Inc., Gateway to College, Mentor Me, West Marin Community Services, Santa Rosa Junior College, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, and North Bay Children's Center.
We are growing quickly as we continue to receive referrals from our North Bay Partners and build new partnerships. Because of the great need to serve this population, we currently have a waiting list for enrollment. Therefore, we need to raise $50,000 for a second bi-lingual counselor to serve the current needs of our adult learners including veterans.
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