Happy New Year Friends!
We are so excited about our new year and new opportunities. I want to thank all our volunteers for their time and hard work. I hear almost every day how wonderful you are. Students are beginning to read independently without coaxing from their parents. Our students are graduating and going back to regular education classes and doing well. It’s so wonderful to hear about children beginning to enjoy reading and doing math!
Our Tutors and Volunteers are submitting excellent monthly reports, so we should have some close to accurate numbers as we write reports for our funding agencies. That helps our funding agencies and our donors know you are working very hard to improve the literacy rates in Horry Count. We also put our data on Candid (formerly GuideStar), which is a place where agencies and people check to see if we are doing what we said we would do. They look at our volunteer numbers and hours, our students and how many we have currently being tutored and how many lives we have touched.
So many things we are grateful for during 2022 and so many things we know we will learn and appreciate in 2023. We are coming in the New Year with a Wait List for students and Tutors. We’re looking for students in the Socastee and North Myrtle Beach areas and Tutors in the Conway and Carolina Forest areas.
Change and Success go together. While our curriculum has expanded, some of our procedures have changed too. It is awesome how flexible everyone has been, and that “Success Mess” appears to be alive and well, and you all make it easier. Thank you to everyone who has given your time, your funding, and all of your positive energy to allow this organization to grow.
Unfortunately, we are still dealing with Covid as well as flu, RSV, and strep throat which appears to be rampant right now. Please wash your hands often, wear a mask to avoid catching “anything” and take care of yourselves. We want you healthy!
Together we are building community through literacy!
Dodi
Dodi Hodges, Executive Director
The Logophile
A perennial New Year wish is, “I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.” Prosperous is an adjective defined as auspicious, favorable, marked by success or economic well-being, enjoying vigorous and healthy growth, flourishing. (Merriam-Webster). In common usage, prosperous is essentially making or having a lot of money.
The term is derived from Twelfth Century Old French, prosperite, “flourishing or thriving condition, good fortune, wealth, success in anything good or desirable.” (Etymology Online Dictionary). The etymology of prosperous suggests a far more nuanced meaning than contemporary parlance suggests.
I am intuitively drawn to prosperous as flourishing. Numerous are the stories of great wealth being squandered, lost by misfortune, or the miserable rich who are not happy despite possessing great well; however, flourishing suggests a rich life marked by the seasons and vicissitudes yet thriving. Of course, this includes wealth as a means not an end-in-itself. So, I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.
VOLUNTEER LIAISONS NEEDED
Duties of a Volunteer Liaison:
Administers short progress assessments (DIBELS) every 3-4 months for the students in that library region;
Reports pre- and post-test scores to the executive director as well as the progress check assessments;
Writes short summaries about student progress as reported by tutor and based on progress assessments to give to ED as requested;
Communicates with librarians, parents and stakeholders.
Email [email protected] or call (843) 945-9278 for more information
OUTSTANDING STUDENTS
READING AND MATH SCREENING
Please welcome Veronica DeCicco to her new position as our new Screening Coordinator, Palmetto Literacy Council. Veronica DeCicco has volunteered to screen students who are coming into the program to determine which program and at what level they are achieving. Veronica already tutors a student for PLC and is the Volunteer Liaison at the Chapin Library. Veronica is a former Reading Specialist and School Administrator. She has a consulting business as well. It must be true that the busy just stay busy.
Bibliophiles Wanted
The next meeting of the PLC Book Club will be on Thursday January 26 at 6:00 in our offices. This is “reader’s choice” – please come and discuss a book you love and would recommend to others. We will be choosing what books we would like to read going forward at this meeting. Please contact [email protected] to sign up. Hope to see you there!
Volunteer Opportunities
TUTOR – Provide free tutoring services to children through adults in the areas of basic reading, writing, and/or math. Two hours per week of one to one tutoring for a period of at least six months to one year to build relationship and see progress.
BOARD MEMBER – Promote and support with one’s time, talent and finances the Mission, Vision and Values of the PLC in the community. Attend bi-monthly Board Meetings and volunteer in a variety of fundraising efforts.
GRANT WRITING – Assist in the search for and writing of grants to fund PLC’s progams through collaboration with Executive Director and Accountant.
FUNDRAISING– Assist PLC in its ongoing needs to raise funds and represent PLC at fundraising events and meetings.
GOVERNANCE – Revise and update Bylaws to ensure that the Board operates in compliance with established Bylaws and Policies.
MARKETING – Work with Fundraising Program Coordinator and area organizations, assist in distribution of marketing materials and coordinate with social media volunteers.
FUNDRAISING DATABASE – Work with the Executive Director and Accountant to manage and update database to facilitate fundraising events and donations.
COMMUNICATIONS – Assist in creating content for monthly newsletter distributed to Board Members, volunteers, students (and families) and community members.
RECEPTION/DATA ENTRY – Greet visitors and direct them to the correct location/meeting and provide data entry assistance as necessary.
OFFICE ASSISTANCE – Maintain and update student binders.
Email [email protected] or call (843)945-9278 for more information
