The Literacy Council of Frederick County lifts the lives of Frederick County adults by providing pathways to essential literacy skills. Our programs include ESL tutoring and community classes for English language learners, as well as Life Skills, Basic Literacy, a GED lab, and financial and digital literacy workshops for native English speakers. Through our Workforce Development program, we also partner with local businesses to bring ESL and Basic Literacy classes directly to their employees. Our services are driven by the fundamental belief that literacy should be attainable for everyone, because literacy is more than reading and writing. It’s greater access to resources. It’s an opportunity for employment advancement. It’s leaving a legacy that values education. And it’s inviting our neighbors into a shared community.
A conversation with Jenna Caruso, Office and Program Administrator
Tell us your organization origin story!
The Literacy Council has been in operation for over 60 years. In 1959, local members of Church Women United began a migrant ministry project to help the many seasonal workers who came to Frederick County each year. They soon found that many of the workers could not read and decided to add literacy to the project. In 1963, Kay Mackley and Dolly Engle, along with other members of the group, officially founded Frederick County Laubach Literacy—later to become the Literacy Council of Frederick County—to teach adults how to read using the Laubach method. We were the second literacy council in Maryland, following the Literacy Council of Montgomery County by only a few months. In the beginning, our organization operated out of peoples’ homes and later at space provided by the Evangelical Lutheran Church. In 1982, the Council made its home in the C. Burr Artz Library building, where we are still housed today.
What do you like most about being an organization in Frederick County?
Frederick County has everything we as an organization need with a diverse population to serve and a strong commitment to service within the community. Our organization relies on a large volunteer corps to do the work we do, and we are lucky there are so many people here who want to make a difference.
What makes The Literacy Council Unique?
We are here to serve the adult population of Frederick at little or no cost to our learners. Any adult can come to us for help with their literacy needs, and we have a wide array of program options throughout the year to meet them where they are and help them quickly begin working toward their individual learning goals.
What do you wish people knew about The Literacy Council?
While we work with a lot of ESL learners, we also offer several programs for native English speakers. All adult learners are welcome, and we have many opportunities for adult volunteers to serve in our organization.
How can the community support you?
We are a nonprofit, so there are multiple ways we could use the community’s support! Please consider making a financial contribution to support our programs on Giving Tuesday or any day. You can donate directly through our website and also through links provided in many of our social media posts. If that is not an option for you, you can share, like, and follow us on social media to help get the word out about what we do, and we are also always in need of volunteers. Our ESL community classes and tutoring program are run entirely by volunteers.
What do you do best?
Our specialty is empowering residents of Frederick County by helping them improve their communication and English language skills. We also help our learners with things like Financial Literacy, Digital Literacy, Health Literacy, and more, but our signature contribution to the community is definitely our ESL tutoring program. The backbone of this program is a volunteer workforce of more than 195 individuals who contributed more than 12,000 hours of service in our last fiscal year and served more than 575 adult learners. But believe it or not, we still need more volunteers to meet the demand for ESL tutoring in our community. Anyone interested in being a part of this program can sign up to volunteer on our website.
Is there anything else that you want the Chamber membership to know about?
We’re always excited to partner with local businesses and organizations to ensure the efforts of our instructors and volunteers are leading to meaningful, concrete results and having an impact in the professional and personal lives of our Learners. Our Workplace Literacy program does just that by offering employment credential classes for service industry professionals, career exploration classes for people looking to enter the job market, and ESL classes for employees of our partners. We will come to your place of business and teach English-language reading, writing, and conversation to your workforce. What better way could there be to demonstrate value and investment in your people and watch them blossom in their professional journeys with you.
Frederick Chamber Insights is a news outlet of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce. For more information about membership, programs and initiatives, please visit our website.