DANCING WITH THE STARS HAS BEEN POSTPONED
We are announcing that we are postponing our Dancing with the Stars fundraiser until next spring. A new date has not yet been set.
As you may know, our event was originally set for March 21st this year. The onset of COVID-19 and the governor’s order against crowds caused us to postpone it. A tentative date for October 24th. Now upon consulting with our dancers and the board of director’s we are once again postponing it.
2020 HAS BEEN A VERY CHALLENGING YEAR FOR US
2020 has been a very tough year for non-profits across the globe and certainly no different here in the Kokomo area. So many of us have had to cancel events like this that provided much-needed cash to help us help others. The Literacy Coalition actually closed from March 18 to May 18.
This pandemic turned our world upside down. Our strengths became weaknesses as face to face tutoring became too risky. Our student population has many people with serious health issues; our tutor population tends to be older individuals who we feared to put at risk.
Fortunately, many of our students and tutors returned once we reopened. Since many local jobs have disappeared, we have seen new students enrolling weekly. Our capacity to help is only limited by our ability to recruit and train volunteers and find additional income to replace the limited contributions and fundraising.
DISTANCE LEARNING
We have begun some distance learning with our online app called Learning Upgrade. We had that program funded for this year by a grant we received from the Dollar General Foundation in 2019. This allowed our students with smartphones to access over 900 English and Math lessons online. In May we were able to add Digital Literacy lessons for our students using Android phones or tablets. This has been very beneficial to our program and students. Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, our students have logged over 240 hours of English and math instruction.