Wisconsin Family Literacy Program Thrives Despite Unfavorable Economy

Thanks to a $15,000 grant from Verizon, the Wisconsin Humanities Council is able to expand its Motheread/Fatheread family literacy training offerings in 2003.

WISCONSIN FAMILY LITERACY PROGRAM THRIVES DSEPITE UNFAVORABLE ECONOMY

Madison, Wis.– In the face of dramatic spending cuts from charitable foundations and government agencies around the state and nationwide, there is hopeful news for one Wisconsin family literacy program. Thanks to a $15,000 grant from Verizon, the Motheread/Fatheread family literacy program offered by the Wisconsin Humanities Council is able to expand its training offerings this year.

The power of stories is at the heart of Motheread/Fatheread, a statewide training program that teaches educators, librarians, social service professionals, and others how to work with families to improve adults literacy skills, help adults grow as parents, promote family communication around important life themes, and increase reading to children by parents.

Worried that decreased charitable giving and funding cuts experienced by their partner educational organizations might force them to cut back on the program, the council took a fresh look at funding strategies. They teamed up with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instructions federally funded Even Start program to offer a Motheread/Fatheread training session, but needed to find a source to make up their significant budget shortfall.

Then we learned about Verizon," says Dena Wortzel, associate director of the Wisconsin Humanities Council. Their corporate foundation supports community programs that focus not just on technology and computer literacy, but also on basic literacy. Because of Verizons interest in helping economically and socially disadvantaged people, we thought that the Motheread/Fatheread program was a perfect match."

In Wisconsin, 50,600 residents are totally illiterate and 442,000 are functionally illiterate. As a state and a society, we simply cannot afford this," Wortzel says. Yet in an unfavorable economy, nonprofit agencies like the Wisconsin Humanities Council find it harder to offer the same level of services to the public. Thats why were so thrilled with the Verizon grant. To see a major corporation step up to the plate and support literacy in such a big way is encouraging."
   
Verizon is committed to supporting literacy in our state," says Lou Ann Novak, Verizon Foundation representative. Parents can best help their children achieve lifelong literacy and a love of books by a simple act – reading with their children daily."

With the grant, this year the council will train forty instructors who will then offer Motheread/Fatheread classes to adults and support the early literacy development of young children in their home communities. Together, those forty instructors can help a total of 800 families in Wisconsin each year. Its a wonderfully effective program," adds Wortzel.
   
For more information about the program, contact the Wisconsin Humanities Council at (608) 262-0706 or http://www.wisconsinhumanities.org.

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