OUR MISSION
"The Literacy Council of Wake County improves the lives of adults, youth, and families by teaching basic literacy and life skills for economic and social success."
Since 1970, the Literacy Council of Wake County (LCWC) has been teaching adults how to read and write better through the use of volunteer, one-on-one and small group class tutors. The LCWC also has an English as a Second Language (ESL) program designed for students whose native language is not English. By training tutors and matching them with students, the LCWC helped over 500 adults work towards their personal reading and writing goals last year alone. All of our tutoring services are provided free of charge. We are very proud of the fact that 94% of our organization is comprised of volunteers.
As a small volunteer organization, each of the 10,000 hours that volunteers put into the work of the LCWC last year was crucial to our success. Although we helped 500 adults reach their personal literacy goals last year, the LCWC still has a lot of work to do.
LCWC is a 501(c)(3) organization - all donations are tax deductible.
AN EXPLANATION OF ADULT LITERACY ESTIMATES
Literacy skills are measured on a scale of 1 to 5, with Level 5 reflecting the highest skills and Level 1, the lowest. Generally, those adults who score at Level 1 have difficulty performing such everyday tasks as locating an intersection on a street map, reading and comprehending a short newspaper article, or calculating total costs on an order form.
According to the Adult Literacy Estimates based on the 1990 U.S. Census, 17% of Wake County's population is at "Level 1." Based on a population in Wake County of 335,891 adults, 57,101 adults are at Level 1.