HUNTINGTON BEACH : Grant Loss Threatens City Literacy Program

After 11 years of teaching adults to read and write, the city’s literacy program is in jeopardy after losing its $35,000-a-year federal grant.

Linda Light, founder and literacy director of the program, said board members of the nonprofit Literacy Volunteers of America-Huntington Valley learned last month, after nine years of receiving funding, that the grant will not be renewed when it expires in September.

Because of that loss, she said, the program will no longer be eligible for a matching state grant, which paid the salaries of three part-time staff members.

“Without people to run it, it’s basically down the tubes,” she said of the program.

Literacy Volunteers made a plea Monday to the City Council for $40,000 to keep the project going.

“If we lose the funding, the program will die,” literacy board member Mary DeSloover said. “We have some funds, but the money won’t last.”

The city now contributes computer lab space at Huntington Central Library for the program’s office, where tutors meet with literacy students.

“We can’t just stop this program,” Rose Saylin, literacy coordinator, said Monday. “It’s a big program, and we just have to find a way to keep it going.”

Federal grant or not, the group said, it will continue to seek funds for operating expenses. Last year, about $8,000 was raised by holding a trivia challenge, Saylin said.

Since 1984, she said, the program has served 1,500 students and trained 1,300 tutors.

The program’s current 200 tutors collectively put in 13,000 volunteer hours a year.