Central Los Angeles : Literacy Program Honors AmeriCorps
Families, volunteers and community leaders gathered Thursday to kick off the Eastside Family Literacy and Child Development Center’s second year of work with AmeriCorps USA members.
The East Los Angeles center, which provides services ranging from classes in English as a Second Language to family literacy and child development programs, graduated five AmeriCorps members and welcomed nine more.
“Their work has tremendous impact, not just on our program but on the members themselves. Many are graduates of our own school,” center founder Dolores Diaz-Carrey said.
Through the AmeriCorps program, which is part of President Clinton’s National Service Act, participants work for the community in a full-time or part-time capacity in exchange for an educational stipend to either go to college or help repay college loans.
More than 100 families, most of them Latino, take classes at the center every day and 200 more are on a waiting list, according to Diaz-Carrey. Additional help, she said, like that provided by AmeriCorps, is sorely needed.
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