From the Director:
Dear Friends,
We are excited to announce that PLC has a new office space to call home. We now have several rooms that can be used as work stations, areas to assemble binders for students, staging of donated items and board meetings. Thanks to all who helped move and unpack items on Monday March 7. See the newsletter link below for photos from our move.
Our new address is:
Ardis Offices, 1010 5th Ave N #102
Surfside Beach, SC 29575
With the advent of spring, PLC volunteers are actively engaged in all kinds of tasks for our organization; it can’t be said often enough that PLC would not exist without our many volunteers. There are so many ways you can assist us as we endeavor to improve literacy skills in children and adults in Horry County. Please contact Mary Ellen Lynch, our Volunteer Coordinator at [email protected].
Jan Leonhard shares her moving experience of tutoring for PLC on page 4. It is truly inspirational. If you’re thinking about being a tutor, we are in need of tutors in the following areas:
Aynor – children 1 Reading 1 math
Conway – children 5 Reading 1 math
Socastee – children 3 Reading
Myrtle Beach – Patrick’s Mobile Home Park, Adult Literacy – 3 adult students
We also need a Volunteer Liaison for Adult Literacy Program at Patrick’s Mobile Home Park, 2000 Hwy 15, Myrtle Beach. From the Director Palmetto Literacy Council is a vital force in meeting the literacy challenges in Horry County. Recent statistics verify the need for our services. At present, the literacy rates in Horry County are disturbingly low: 63.40% of third graders read below grade level; 48.90% of eighth graders are below standards in reading (Literacy2030.org). Our goal is to be the center for literacy education and training in Horry County.
To that end, we continue to find ways to reach students who are in need of our services. We appreciate the financial support provided by our community partners and by individuals alike. Please consider making a donation today at our web- site: palmettoliteracy.org. Look for ways to share your love of reading with others and spread the word that books are the key to success.
Sincerely,
Dodi Hodges
Executive Director
TEDx, CCU, April 23, 2022
Mark your calendars:
Dodi will be a speaker at the Coastal Carolina University TEDx conference on April 23, 2022. Her talk is titled: “Building Community Through Literacy.” The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration Building’s Johnson Auditorium. The event theme is Inspiring Change, and speakers will discuss issues regarding education, homelessness, the environment, worker cooperatives, literacy and criminal justice. The event is open to the public. Tickets are limited and may be purchased at the link provided below.
https://www.coastal.edu/scoess/spadonicentersandinitiatives/ tedxatcoastalcarolinauniversity/.
SPEAKERS:
Ashlyn Brierre, Civil Rights Activist – Voting Rights
Jaime McCauley, Associate Professor of Sociology – Community Change and the Environment
Jennifer Schlosser, Assistant Professor of Sociology –Criminal Justice
Leo Woodberry, Community Activist – Environmental Justice
Mal Hyman, Professor of Sociology
Sara Brallier, Professor of Sociology – Homelessness
Valeria Evans, Family and Youth Advocate
Marley Mac, founder The Better Together Initiative
The Logophile
The deep roots never doubt spring will come.
– Marty Rubin
The seeming lightness of being, patches of daffodils, greening of trees and flitting of butterflies are harbin- gers of the arrival of spring. However, there is an important astronomical event that determines the changing of seasons, especially, spring and fall; that is the equinox. The term equinox appears in late Middle English, derived from Old French equinoxe or Latin aequinoctium = aequi– ‘equal’ = nox– ‘nox’– ‘night, equal night.
Twice a year the sun crosses the equator, and day and night are nearly equal in length in both the North- ern and the Southern Hemispheres, spring (vernal equinox) and fall (autumnal equinox) around March 21 and September 23 respectively. However, these events are experienced inversely between the hemispheres; when the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing the vernal equinox, the Southern Hemisphere is experiencing the autumnal equinox. In the Northern Hemisphere, the spring equinox will occur on March 20th this year.
Wishing you the happiest of spring!
Pictured above: Jan Carter, Tutor with Jaida Smith, Student
In The News
On Tuesday, March 15 Dodi’s interview with Nicole Boone on the local lifestyle show “Living Local Carolina” will be aired on WBTW. This is just a small portion of the entire interview; the rest of it will air throughout the next few weeks.
Donations Wanted
Palmetto Literacy Council will be holding a book sale fundraiser on September 10, 2022 and we are in need of books. Please drop off your new or “gently” used books at our offices in Surfside. Thank you.
Pictured above: Dodi at Burgess Elementary with Ms. Elliot’s Grade 1 classroom through a Literacy Day sponsored by United Way and the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. She read “Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun” to the students.
Catheryn Weitman: I am read- ing a book (actually 3!) on Tom Brokaw about his boyhood in South Dakota. I am fascinated by biographies! So far I’ve read about his life up until high school and how he was always a talker. We lived in South Dakota for a year, so his description is more interesting for me than those unfamiliar with that state.
Patricia D’Ascoli: I just finished The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi for my monthly book club and enjoyed it thoroughly! The novel takes place in 1950’s. India and offers a wonderful perspective on life and customs of the times. There is a very handy reference guide in the back of the book that gives the definitions for the many Hindi words used by the author in the book. I recommend it highly. It’s the first book of the Jaipur Trilogy.
Why Do I Volunteer at PLC?
By Jan Leonhard: I LOVE to learn! I’m curious and enjoy reading about/discovering new-to me things. I volunteer for PLC because I want to infect as many children with the “love of learning/reading” bug as I can. When I work with my student, I try to instill that love of read- ing. I explain how being a good reader is the key to THEIR future. They can go anywhere/do anything THEY want, if they are good at reading.
I demonstrate how the tasks we are working on may not be too exciting, but they are the building blocks for the student’s lifetime of reading what THEY want. I show them that the Dolch/Frye words we are drilling on are rampant in the passages that we
are reading. Knowing these words makes reading easier.
I’ve shown my student how to look up words in a dictionary (the children’s version for now, but we did go looking for the LARGE dictionary in the library.) Again, explaining how this skill will serve them for life. When reading anything, if you come upon a word you don’t know, look it up, so that you get the full meaning of what you are reading.
It sounds heavy as I write this, but I’m really just making little comments here and there. Funny statements, if you will, to get my points across. I try to make our hour of tutoring fun, something that my student looks forward to. If my student is having a rough day, we take a break and read a fun book. He’s laughing his head off, not realizing that, yep, he’s still reading.
Books from a Vending Machine
The Horry County Memorial Library System received a $30,000 grant to fund a book vending machine which will hold 300 items at a time. The decision to purchase the machine comes as libraries have had to adjust how they provide services due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though things are open again, people are still hesitant to come in and this is a way to still maintain the level of safety that library patrons want. Hence a book vending machine.
The vending machine will likely be placed in a high- trafficked area in the county. It will be entirely user friendly: A patron scans their library card, opens the door, chooses their books and receives a receipt! Library patrons can request that their books be sent there and can drop off books at the vending machine as well. Ultimately, the vending machine will expedite book trips and will also function as a tool to reach more people in the county.
Library Clubs
Thrill Seekers Book Club – Socastee Library 843-915-5283
Chapin’s Chapters Book Club – Chapin Memorial Library. 843-918-1275.
Shady Lit Wits Book Club – Carolina Forest Library 843-915-5282
Little River Book Club – Little River Library 843-915-5284
