My Nonprofit Reviews

Bsginingwith Project Literacy of Greater Bergen County at the inception of the organization in the mid 1980's as Coordinator and co-founder, I remained in that position until 2008 when retired as Executive Director of Project LIteracy.
Throughout the years, I was very pleased to see the mission of developing awareness of adult literacy issues take hold. The corporate world were sponsoring on site adult literacy education programs for employees in need of basic skills, and more focus was on workforce literacy through the NJ State Department of Education. Project Literacy continues to train volunteer tutors to work 1-1 with adults in need of reading, writing, math and speaking English.
I am grateful to Bergen Community College and their support of the mission of Project Literacy, as well as to the volunteer tutors who work tirelessly with much dedication to their adult learners. It is pleasing to see many adult learners advance sufficiently to enroll in basic skills class at Bergen Community College Learning Center as they move on to meet their goals. Also - many thanks to the staff of PL, whose loyalty and dedication keep our mission alive.
I continue to serve adult literacy as an officer on the board of trustees of Project Literacy of Greater Bergen County.

Long ago when I learned of American born adults in our area who couldn’t read or write, I was quite surprised, and disturbed. This was over thirty years ago. I decided that I would like to do something about that and was put in touch with Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA). When working with this organization throughout New Jersey as a volunteer, and then a paid staff person, I learned to train volunteer tutors to work 1 – 1 with adults in teaching basic reading. As the years went by, people from other countries came to live in our country and many settled in our community. Of course these people lacked English-speaking skills, so I learned how to train volunteers to teach English as a Second Language (ESL). Inspired by the adult learners and the enthusiasm of the trained volunteers, I soon began to establish LVA- approved affiliates in counties throughout northern New Jersey. After a while I decided that I wanted to strengthen adult literacy services in my own community of Bergen County. So I met with the director of the Bergen Community College Adult Learning Center in Hackensack, and the idea of starting Project Literacy was born. A task force was established which soon evolved into a board of directors and Project Literacy gained non-profit status. Under our leadership, the group undertook raising awareness of adult literacy needs and services in the Bergen County area. With the growing need to provide 1 -1 tutoring to adults in basic literacy, Project Literacy of Greater Bergen County eventually developed their own tutoring program, which was designed after the LVA model of quality training and support of the volunteer tutors and students.
At present Project Literacy’s dedicated staff works tirelessly in working to increase awareness of literacy needs and for a more literate Bergen County.
Needless to say there are expenses in order for the organization to function. The need for Project Literacy of Greater Bergen County is here to stay. There is a lot of work to do because there are a lot of adults in need of 1 – 1 tutoring in basic reading, writing, math and spoken English by trained volunteers. The tutoring sessions are free to the adult learner.
Now, when I visit the Project Literacy area, it is heart warming for me to see pairs of individuals sitting at tables and bent over a book, studying a paper, speaking softly – I recognize them as a tutor-student pair. But most of the time I cannot tell which one is the tutor and which one is the student. It is truly a beautiful sight.