LEARN receives new support through grants and volunteers

Increasing opportunities for adults in our community through increased literary skills, a number of organizations are providing over $15,000 in funding support to LEARN (Learn English and Reading Now, Inc.), while several new members of the nonprofit’s Board of Directors and a new program coordinator have been announced.

In one of its last philanthropic grants for literacy programs, Verizon Reads has provided LEARN with a $5,070 grant to purchase laptop computers and Rosetta Stone American English software programs for use by LEARN’s English for Speakers of Other Languages learners and tutors.

Significant support, too, comes to LEARN from a collaborative $5,000 United Way grant enabling LEARN, the Waynesboro Area Learning Tree, and Casa de Amistad to participate in a “Linking Literacy and Technology for Change” project.  United Way also awarded $3,000 plus $1,109 in designations to LEARN, while the Augusta Health Foundation has contributed $1,000.

“These contributions will go far toward training new tutors and providing teaching materials, as well as helping LEARN to keep abreast of health-related issues in our area, and to network with other community organizations,” said Liz Williams, the nonprofit literacy organization’s new program coordinator.

LEARN’s current Board of Directors comprises President Sylvia Woodworth, Vice President Betsy Conyers, Secretary Nancy Martin, Treasurer Jeffrey Schwenk, and Members-at-Large Jacquelyn Beals, Janvier Gakwaya, Teresa Howell, Bruce Joffe, John Lotz, and Brenci Patiño.

A new Website for LEARN – headquartered at 59 John Lewis Road in the Shenandoah Valley Head Start building – will be launched this summer.  Meanwhile, LEARN can be reached by telephone (540-245-5136) and email ([email protected]).