Literacy North Halton celebrates 20 years in the community - thanks to its volunteers

Literacy North Halton celebrates 20 years in the community -- thanks to its volunteers

In 1986 the community would have numbered under 20,000 residents but there was always a need for literacy upgrading in the community. Some local residents recognized this fact and got together in one of their own homes to discuss ways of providing help to those in need. Posters were placed in prominent positions and the first volunteer tutors were recruited. We have come a long way. In 20 years we are now providing literacy upgrading to a community that is now known as north Halton. This encompasses Georgetown, Acton and Milton and the population now exceeds 100,000 people. With at least one in five people struggling with their basic literacy skills, some 20,000 potential students alone exist in north Halton. Our classes run all year round and our volunteers come from all walks of life. These community-minded individuals give up three hours per week for a minimum of one full year to help another adult upgrade their basic reading, writing, spelling, math and computer skills. Here is what our students have to say about these great volunteers: · My tutor praises my work. It makes me feel funny...but I like it. · My volunteer tutor helped me become a great volunteer. · My tutor listens to me. · My tutor helped me with my story I did about the rock group KISS and worked on the computer with my spelling and math. · "I really enjoy going to class. My tutors work well together! I have learned a lot of different things. My tutors have put a lot of work into making this work. I really award them for what they have done." · "I want to say that I have learned a lot of math, grammar and typing. I really came a long way...Thanks to my tutors for the wonderful work that they've done." A great tribute for some great people. But let's not forget those volunteers who work

tirelessly behind the scenes. In order to raise funds for our programs, we have some very busy volunteers out in the community running our fundraising events. Our office could not survive without our great office volunteers, our computers would fail without IT support, our posters would not be placed in prominent positions throughout the community without our outreach volunteers

and last but not least, our board members. The buck stops with them. They create our guidelines, stragically plan our activities and sit on sub-committees in order that we can successfully run our programs. Thank you all. Thank you for supporting literacy in this community. If you would like to volunteer with Literacy North Halton please call 905-873 2200 for further information or visit our website at www.literacynh.org Literacy North Halton is a registered nonprofit organization #107782609-RR0001 and is supported by the Ministry of Training, Colleges & Universities; United Way of Halton Hills; United Way of Milton, community agencies and individuals.