National Coalition for Literacy

By Marsha Tait

Left: Al Toops, Executive Director, Ohio Literacy Network, and right: Jackson Routh, Community Initiatives Manager, Dollar General Literacy Foundation at the NCL/Dollar General Advocacy Symposium.

In June, NCL was pleased to award three advocacy “mini-grants” to attendees at the NCL/Dollar General Advocacy Symposium that took place in Columbus, Ohio, April 21.

Awardees were: The Ohio Literacy Network, for their Collaborative Advocacy Project Proposal; the Ohio Association for Adult and Continuing Education for their Statewide Advocacy Symposium for Adult Basic and Literacy Education proposal; and Parma Adult Education Services for their Coalition for Advocacy for the Life‐long Learner (C.A.L.L.) proposal.  All three proposals were very strong and have a heavy emphasis on advocacy collaboration.  All awardees have been requested to complete their projects in the early fall.  We will share the outcomes of these projects with NCL stakeholders on our advocacy web site.

The Piedmont Triad Partnership, a “mini-grant” award winner from the NCL/Dollar General Symposium held last November in NC, held a Webinar on June 16 titled Organizing a Regional Grassroots Literacy Advocacy Network.  Jackie Taylor and Marsha Tait provided facilitation and technical assistance, and helped new advocates in the Piedmont Triad Region to plan and execute their advocacy initiative.  You can find materials from the Webinar on the  National Coalition for Literacy’s website here.

NCL is currently beginning to identify prospective state and regional partners for its fall advocacy symposium.  If you know of a state or regional conference that will be taking place this fall, please contact Jackie (jackie@jataylor.net) or Marsha (mltait09@twcny.rr.com) by email for consideration.  NCL prefers to hold the symposia in conjunction with state-wide or regional conferences.  Please note: only geographic locations with a strong Dollar General presence will be considered.  Thank you.