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March Forth for Literacy
A day for concentrated focus on literacy awareness
March 4, 2015
For more information, contact Judith Youngman at youngmanj@ucc.org or 216-736-3714.
Approximately 32 million adults in the United States can't read. They can't understand their own prescription bottle, figure out a bus schedule, or even order from a menu - things we take for granted every hour of every day.
Hot Dogs and Hamburgers: Unlocking Life's Potential by Inspiring Literacy at Any Age is the heartwarming story of Rob Shindler, a father who wanted to help his son with his reading challenges. Shindler discovered the way to that goal was through volunteering at the Literacy Center of Chicago. There, he learned firsthand how ridiculous the common misconceptions are about learning disabilities and adult low literacy. The assortment of students he taught were ambitious people who were eloquent, driven, clever, and so funny they made him laugh out loud. Here, Rob shares his students' pain and humiliations, frustrations and hopes. Hot Dogs & Hamburgers demonstrates that literacy issues reside in all neighborhoods and that its victims are committed to finding dignity and life's possibilities through learning to read.
Rob's teaching experiences are so motivating and rewarding that once you've read his story, you're likely to begin your own journey as a literacy tutor.
What if you could change the course of someone's future by teaching them to read? Would you believe it only takes one hour per week for one year? In the Hot Dogs & Hamburgers Literacy Tutoring Manual, Shindler and his daughter Isabella show you how easy and rewarding it is to become an adult literacy tutor. By following the basic suggestions they provide in this manual—including teaching phonics and sight words—plus incorporating healthy doses of patience and humor, you will empower an adult to learn how to read. This manual contains special tear-out flash cards they developed that will make the process even easier.
United Church of Chapel Hill is a progressive church in Chapel Hill, NC. No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here.
Take the NC 86 exit (exit 266), and turn south onto NC 86, also known as Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. (historic Airport Road). Go about 1.4 miles. Turn right into the United Church parking lot. If you miss the turn from Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. into the church, continue to Homestead Road at the next traffic light. Turn right and proceed as below.
Go north on Columbia Street (which very soon becomes Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. (historic Airport Road)) for about 2.6 miles. Turn left onto Homestead Road (at a traffic light). Pass the UNC Homestead Operations Building entrance, then turn right on Northern Park Road. Pass another UNC entrance, then turn right into the United Church parking lot.
Reading Changes Lives is a response to the crippling literacy gap in the world. This gap continues to be a persistent problem in the United States and abroad.
As a complicated and broad social justice issue, literacy is an issue that touches (and addresses) other issues, including economic justice, gender inequality, criminal justice, and public education, racial justice, among others. But it affects very simple aspects of our lives, from being able to complete a job application to reading the instructions on a prescription bottle.
In fact, limited literacy skills are a major contributor to poverty, illiteracy becomes a barrier for those marginalized by race and economic status. Reading Changes Lives acknowledges that literacy is essential to end the cycle of poverty, to close the school-to-prison pipeline, and to create inclusive, healthy communities where all can be active and advocate for themselves.
In our continued fight for equality and justice, the United Church of Christ (UCC) recognizes that the inability to read is detrimental to a person’s basic human rights. The need has never been greater for faith communities to stand up and take action. The UCC is ready to accept the call to justice. The time to address the current crisis is NOW, and the need is pressing upon us. Our Christian mandate dictates such.
Join in our effort to educate, engage and inspire action.
Reading Changes Lives began in the fall of 2014 with the inaugural "One Read," an all-church read with an inspirational book: Hot Dogs and Hamburgers: Unlocking Life's Potential by Inspiring Literacy at Any Age.
This ongoing literacy initiative will continue into spring 2015 with March Forth for Literacy (March 4, 2015), a day for concentrated focus on literacy awareness that will offer congregations opportunities to share with the whole church their involvement in literacy issues locally and nationally and give individuals opportunities to share their literacy-related experiences, either as volunteers or persons who have struggled with literacy themselves. Stay tuned for updates on this page and on the UCC's Facebook page.
Also, General Synod 30 (held in late June in Cleveland, Ohio) will lift-up literacy as a service project focus and ask Synod attendees to participate within the Greater Cleveland community, one of the country's urban centers of illiteracy.
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