Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville/Albemarle has been awarded $10,000 from the Bama Works Fund of Dave Matthews Band in the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation.
LVCA will put the funds towards improving volunteer tutor recruitment and retention. LVCA regularly has 30-40 students on its waiting list for tutors. Some of these students must wait for over two months. By increasing tutor retention, LVCA will diminish wait time and be able to serve more adults in the community seeking to improve their literacy skills.
“We are the only community organization that offers free one-to-one tutoring to adults at the lowest literacy levels,” explains Literacy Volunteers Executive Director Ellen Osborne. “To do that effectively, we rely on continually recruiting and training excellent volunteers.” The grant money will be used to increase annual tutor trainings from six to ten per year as well as fund staff time to offer more opportunities for professional development to continuing tutors.
“In addition to offering more workshops, we hope to retain tutors by making LVCA a fun and rewarding place for them to spend their time,” Osborne explains. To that end, the Bama Works funding will also support new opportunities for tutors to socialize and share successes and challenges. In addition to a monthly Tutor Book Group, LVCA plans to create learning communities among tutors with similar types of students.
“Many of our students finish their studies with us in a year or two,” Osborne says, “But our tutors often stay with us for multiple years. We’re thankful for them and their dedication.” The next Literacy Volunteers New Tutor Training will be Saturday, July 23, 9:30am-4:00pm in the Jefferson School City Center.
More information can be found at literacyforall.org.
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Chris Graham
