The Literacy Council of Buncombe County serves two target populations. The first are adult basic-education students who do not read as well as they would like, or who lack the literacy skills necessary to accomplish everyday life tasks. The second is the growing number of immigrants who reside in Buncombe County. The Literacy Council is constantly recruiting and training volunteers to work as literacy tutors.
In addition to serving local adults in literacy education, the Literacy Council will soon begin a Drop-Out Prevention Program in partnership with Asheville City Schools. The youth in our schools who are at risk of dropping out are students who see no other option; many of them have been in special-education services for much of their school careers and have still not learned literacy skills. As a result, these students have had successive failures throughout their school careers. It is the Literacy Council’s goal to reach them as soon as possible rather than setting them up for the downward spiral of economic and social failure that comes with not having a high-school diploma or having low literacy skills. The overarching goal is to collaborate with school systems and individual schools.
Adult Basic Education Coordinator Dianne Harper says, “One of the great gifts of the Literacy Council is that we get to affect change in people’s lives on a daily basis.”
To get involved, call 254-3442. It only takes two hours a week to teach someone to read.
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