Overview of The Literacy Council of Mercer County

The Literacy Council of Mercer County

In 1986, in the wake of local factories closing, we began the Greenville Literacy Council as a tutoring center to help unemployed workers and other adults acquire the reading, math and spelling skills they needed to find work and help their children with homework. But within one year of our opening, we realized a basic skills tutoring center was not enough. We needed to offer English as a Second Language to the variety of immigrants who were settling in Mercer County. And so we added an ESL program to our curricula.

Within another year we realized that many students needed to earn a GED®.  The nearest GED class was 16 to 20 miles away, a short distance but long for students with unreliable transportation. Thus, we added GED classes to our offerings.

As we worked with learners through the years, we saw a need for additional programming:

• Even Start: A program that works with families who have a child 7 years old or younger. Even Start provides adult education for parents, parenting skills for parents, activities for parents to use to help their minds grow and a preschool program.
• Living Room Learning: A home-based individual tutoring program for Mercer County residents who are unable to attend a class.
• Move Up: A program for welfare clients who want to develop better educational skills that will help them find jobs that can support their families
• Relocating the Dislocated Worker:  The Literacy Council will assess the students’ educational skills, while the Mercer County CareerLink® assesses them for occupational aptitudes and interests. Then based on the collected information, The Literacy Council will set up an employability plan that will give them the work-place and basic skills they need, help them earn a GED and enter a vocational training program provided by funds available through the CareerLink.

 

Even though funding levels have changed over the the years, and programs such as Even Start and Move Up have been discontinued, our core Adult Basic Education programs remain, with an additional emphasis on learning job skills.  In fact one of our goals include creating a work-place based program that enable employed workers to progress in their current job, be promoted, or, if the plant is downsizing, enable them to find jobs in another occupational industry.

 

PAYMENT OF SERVICES POLICY:  It is the policy of The Literacy Council of Mercer County that the services provided to those eligible to receive them will be provided to all who seek them without regard to their ability to pay.