Chevron donates $1 million for area literacy programs

The gift will be split among three groups in hopes of raising the reading level of undereducated adults.

By Alison Shackelford
Copley News Service

Literacy programs that serve the South Bay, Harbor Area and the rest of the region got a boost Wednesday when ChevronTexaco announced a $1 million donation to a trio of nonprofit groups.

The Alliance for a Better Community will split the money with the Los Angeles Urban League and the Literacy Network of Greater Los Angeles, with the aim of improving literacy in an area with the highest percentage of undereducated adults of any major metropolitan region in the country.

Some 30 percent of the county's adults lack a high school diploma, and 53 percent have a low literacy level.

Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn, at a downtown news conference where the three organizations accepted the grant, noted that Los Angeles will have difficulty competing economically with the rest of the country if literacy levels do not improve.

"We want to have the workers who can compete for the high-tech jobs that we're working very hard to create, and so this generous gift is going to make sure that we do," Hahn said.

Monica Lozano, a board member with the Alliance for a Better Community, said her group would use the grant money to link students and school attendance counselors with community programs that help keep kids in school.

"Every four years, more than 50,000 students drop out from L.A. County schools, and the majority of those students are students of color," Lozano said.

The Literacy Network, an umbrella organization working with more than 300 literacy program providers, will use its $300,000 share to recruit and train more volunteers. The network focuses on teaching English literacy skills to adults who need to increase their job skills.

Several of the providers are based in El Segundo, Hawthorne, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and Torrance. The Carson/Lomita/Torrance Workforce Investment Network and the South Bay Literacy Council are expected to expand their programs, said Literacy Network project director Michael Horvat.

The grant also will help the Literacy Network create a more unified approach to English-language literacy by creating a certificate program with the same standards in all of their providers' programs. Board member Steven Koltai said the certificate program will also teach employment skills, such as how to read a bus schedule and do basic math.

The Literacy Network will be able to "change the lives, we hope, of thousands of workers, parents and, ultimately, their children," he said.