Literacy Partners

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Literacy Partners is New York City’s leading nonprofit addressing both adult literacy programs and racial justice. With a focus on African American and recent immigrant families, Literacy Partners' free classes, workshops, and educational media help low-income parents build the functional literacy skills they need to achieve success for themselves in today’s economy and to promote their children’s early learning, social-emotional development, and school readiness.

Literacy Partners envisions a future in which every parent and caregiver has the tools to create success for themselves and a better future for their children and racism no longer constrains the potential of any child. We'll get there by expanding our successful model of adult literacy education to improve job prospects, close the achievement gap before children even begin school, and ultimately, break the cycle of poverty.

Funds raised through the For the Love of Liz Auction will support the Liz Smith Center for Adult & Family Literacy at Literacy Partners. The communities of color they serve have been among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic on top of the racial inequities they have long suffered. Not being able to read and act upon essential public health information has quite literally been a death sentence in many of these families. Literacy Partners students now face skyrocketing rates of unemployment, even though they have the least financial cushion to protect themselves.

The Liz Smith Center for Adult & Family Literacy will educate 3,000 new students over the next five years -- nearly doubling the reach of Literacy Partners -- to honor the memory and extraordinary legacy of Liz Smith, the nation’s patron saint of adult literacy.

Learn more at:   https://literacypartners.org/