Literacy Outreach is in its 40th year of community empowerment. The organization has been facilitating development of literacy skills since 1985, based on the belief that the ability to read is an essential survival skill. Literacy Outreach believes that illiteracy holds people back from their full potential, and that improving reading skills allows them to live fuller lives within their communities.
The Garfield County-
based nonprofit uses a model of peer-driven
learning to help people develop general English-
language skills and navigate professional and personal documents. Currently, 40 county residents serve as volunteer tutors, using curricula provided by Literacy Outreach to instruct a student or multiple students.
The organization is always looking for additional volunteers. Today, there are over 100 adults on the waitlist for a tutor countywide, with a particular need in the communities of Carbondale, Glenwood Springs and Rifle.
“Our favorite way to think about it is, if you can read, then you can teach someone else to read,” Program Coordinator Megan Webber said. “Volunteers do not need to have any prior teaching experience or foreign language skills — just a sense of empathy and a willingness to help someone in need!”
Literacy Outreach matches volunteer tutors with students who live in the same community and are available at the same time of day. The group is seeking community members who are interested in tutoring adults who are learning English as a second language in reading or writing.
“I am seeking one to two volunteers in Carbondale for some seriously deserving students there,” Webber said. “A lot of our students work during the day, so often they can only attend lessons in the evenings or when they’re not working.”
Webber said that Literacy Outreach has had “so many success stories, it’s hard to choose one.” The organization has trained over 1,000 tutors and helped over 2,500 students improve literacy skills over the past 40 years. No knowledge of Spanish or teaching experience is required.
Emery Ellingson is a Glenwood-
based tutor who works with a student named Marcelo.
“Marcelo has a really good sense of humor, and is a very thoughtful person,” Ellingson said. “It’s been a lot of fun. The only time I’ve hiked Sopris was with Marcelo. He taught me the Spanish names of the plants we saw, and brought ceviche for us to share. His English has improved a lot from when we started, and he always wants to practice and get better.”
Ellingson said that he and Marcelo are able to schedule their tutoring sessions around their full schedules.
“Don’t get intimidated by the time commitment. Both Marcelo and I are really busy and work long days, but I look forward to our class every week,” he said. “Literacy Outreach does a great job setting up lesson planning and that structure is really helpful. At the end of the day, there are tons of people [who] want to learn. The more you work at it, the better you get, so don’t count yourself out. You get better as a tutor as you go — you both get better. You’re doing it together.”
“You create a personal relationship of trust,” volunteer tutor Liza Orchard added. “It’s a new source of friends as well.”
Jenny Zetah has tutored with Literacy Outreach for almost three decades. “After retiring, I was so excited to get back to tutoring adults for Literacy Outreach, and for the past two years, I have moved from teaching one student to now working with four women each week,” Zetah said.
Zetah said she puts learning first, and encourages students to tutor her in Spanish as they practice their English literacy.
“My number-one rule in class is that it’s okay to make mistakes. I demonstrate this by having a picture prompt each class and, after discussing the picture, my students write a paragraph in English and I write one in Spanish. I share my writing first and ask them to fix my errors because I am a student as well. We support each other to learn from our mistakes and feel comfortable to communicate in a new language.”
More information about Literacy Outreach is available at literacyoutreach.org/volunteer, including a volunteer interest form. Community members can also call 970-945-5282 or email literacyoutreach@literacyoutreach.org with questions or to talk to a staff member.