Literacy Together jokes that they serve people “from birth to death.” It’s a little morbid, Executive Director Amanda Wrublewski admits, but it’s also true. Few organizations in Buncombe County can say their programming spans such a wide range, from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library all the way to adult learners, but Literacy Together can, and they’ve been doing it since 1986.
Growing a Love of Reading
Picture a toddler getting a new picture book in the mail through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. That’s how it started for James (pictured above), who was just five years old when he first showed off his growing stack of Imagination Library books. He’s ten now, loves reading, and gravitates toward nonfiction, especially presidential history. His dad Greg says James reads well above grade level, and for a recent school project he researched President William Henry Harrison.
Not every child’s story looks like James’s. Some kids need a boost. The Youth Literacy Program is built around an internship model: Literacy Together hires and pays high schoolers and college students to tutor elementary kids reading below grade level. “It’s an opportunity for a lot of high school students to have their first job and to develop those leadership skills,” Amanda says, “and also to give back and support the little kids.”
Interns also attend workshops with community partners, from local banks talking through budgeting, to UNC Asheville walking them through college applications. This year, one intern, Josephine, ended up tutoring the young daughter of a woman enrolled in the adult program, teaching her letters and words through games. “That’s been really special, to see Josephine really grow in her confidence,” Amanda says, “and pretty cool to be a part of that whole family.”
Meeting Adults Where They Are
Adult Literacy serves native English speakers who never fully learned to read, while ESOL, the organization’s largest program, serves 250 to 300 students a year from all over the world, most from Latin America, with sizable numbers from Ukraine and Russia. “It’s just access to resources,” Amanda says, pushing back on the idea that struggling to read reflects someone’s intelligence.
One student came to Literacy Together in his sixties, having graduated high school without ever fully learning to read, because he wanted to be able to read to his granddaughter. He worked with his tutor until he could. The first book he ever read to her was Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
That kind of story is part of why flexibility matters so much. The office stays open until 8pm three nights a week, and a virtual tutoring option means volunteers can log in from anywhere. One current tutor is based in Nigeria. “It’s rare for literacy organizations to offer that,” Amanda says. Through it all, she keeps coming back to one idea: “Our values are that everybody has a right to education in our community.”
Partnering for Early Literacy
Early childhood education is at the heart of everything we do at Buncombe Partnership for Children, and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is one of the easiest ways we get books into the hands of children from birth to five. We partner with Literacy Together to make that happen here in Buncombe County, and it all happens behind the scenes. What families see is a new, free picture book showing up in their child’s mailbox every single month, chosen for their age and mailed straight to their home. No trip to a library, no cost, no barrier to entry. Just a book, and then another one, building a home library one month at a time.
Since Dolly Parton’s passing, Literacy Together has seen a wave of renewed interest in the program Dolly built, which feels fitting. She grew up in poverty, watching her own father struggle with reading, and wanted every child to grow up with books in the home. That’s exactly what this partnership is working toward: ensuring every child has access to books and sparking a love of reading that lasts into adulthood.
How to Get Involved
If there’s one thing Literacy Together needs most right now, it’s volunteer tutors. At any given time, they have a waiting list of students, sometimes as many as a hundred, and depending on schedule availability, that wait can stretch past six months.
Becoming a tutor doesn’t require teaching experience or a second language. Literacy Together trains every volunteer from the ground up. The first step is a free online orientation, offered twice a month, where you’ll learn about each program before deciding where to plug in. Most tutor pairs commit to at least a year, and many stay together for years after that, celebrating holidays and milestones along the way.
If tutoring isn’t the right fit for your schedule, you can still help by spreading the word about their programs to friends and family.
Learn more or get involved at lit-together.org.
