Hello friends!
It’s that time again already: time to share with you some of our highlights from the year, stories of the people we have impacted, and those who help make all of this possible.
When our team met to reflect on the year, what kept coming up was the idea of community; that “We can’t do it without community”. By “It” we mean all of the things that we are able to do, all of the services we provide, to adult learners and their educators.
Without our community of Adult Basic Education (ABE) and English Language Learning (ELL) professionals, we would not have been able to provide 17 free high-quality Professional Development workshops during FY25; and those workshops would have meant nothing if it weren’t for the community of gifted and talented teachers and volunteers who came together to learn and to share ideas, that they were then able to bring back to their classrooms. Over 200 teachers and volunteers attended workshops during FY25, impacting 7,697 adult learners across the state of Massachusetts.
Without the community of ABE and ELL programs that constantly strive to find new and innovative ways to teach their adult learners, First Literacy would not have been able to award 6 Innovation grants in FY25.
And of course, we all know that it takes a community to help adult learners like our scholarship recipients to reach their goals. In FY25 we provided tuition support to 26 adult learners, but our scholars need so much more than that; they need all of those “wrap around services” if they are going to succeed. One of our superstar scholars shares how First Literacy did just that for her.
Woven throughout all that we do is the community of donors who believe that literacy is a basic human right; that everyone should be able to read. Some of our donors are able to give large amounts; others have been giving for all of the 35 years that First Literacy has been in existence. This year we are highlighting one of our monthly donors, who are an essential part of our mission.
It can often feel like we are alone in our struggles and in our work. But when we step back and look around, we realize just how many people have been there for us, in big ways and in small. Thank you for being part of our community. We couldn’t do it without you!
Terry Witherell
Executive Director, First Literacy