Washington Lends Hand to Literacy Effort

Just two blocks from Staples Center, where Washington rhetoric is in full bloom, a quieter campaign imported from the nation’s capital is underway--at a Los Angeles charity that works to improve the lives of inner-city kids.

As part of its national Campaign for Literacy, Washington, D.C.-based Sallie Mae, the leading private source of funds for educational loans, is sponsoring a book donation drive and scholarship fund to help the Hope Street Family Center, a provider of bilingual job training, health care and education to downtown families. The scholarship fund, the size of which will be announced Thursday, will help enable youngsters who enroll at Hope Street Center programs to attend college.

“We’re delighted,” said Vickie Kropenske, director of the 8-year-old center. “Sallie Mae is giving us a major boost by supporting and emphasizing the importance of early literacy and family literacy.”

For loan provider Sallie Mae, collecting books and raising money to support Hope Street not only jibes with the company motto--”Education Leads Us”--but also helps focus attention on the for-profit corporation’s philanthropy at a time when its size and influence in the world of student loans has been raising eyebrows on Capitol Hill.

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Founded as a government enterprise 28 years ago under the Federal Family Education Loan Program, Sallie Mae went private in 1997 and has grown to become one of the 10 largest diversified financial companies in the nation. It is the chief rival of the government’s own federal student loan program, which was introduced by the Clinton administration in 1992 and is administered by the U.S. Department of Education.

Other private competitors in the market have expressed concern about Sallie Mae’s clout--especially since the company announced June 15 it would buy USA Group, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that was one of the bigger players in the student loan business.

With assets of $39.9 billion and 3,800 employees, Sallie Mae now serves 5.3 million borrowers, many of whom have also received some sort of federally guaranteed support, so the company’s relationship with lawmakers is critical.

Among Sallie Mae’s chief allies is Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), who chairs the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over the federal government’s student loan program.

For the most part, Sallie Mae has enjoyed good standing in Congress since it went private, said a company spokeswoman. With initiatives like the Campaign for Literacy book drive at the Hope Street Center, she said the company hopes to consolidate its goodwill claim among policymakers.

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Sarah Davis, who is directing the Hope Street project for Sallie Mae, described it as part of a “larger effort to increase educational attainment by ensuring that young kids know how to read and actually have access to books.”

She said Sallie Mae picked Hope Street because of its “very strong track record in meeting the needs of entire families.” By all accounts, the fact that the center lies only a few blocks from where the Democrats have gathered to nominate their presidential candidate--with delegates trooping by and noting the newest project on the block--is just a coincidence.

Kropenske agreed. “There is great synergy between Sallie Mae and the work of the center,” she said.

Kropenske said the Hope Street facility, located on the grounds of the California Hospital Medical Center, primarily serves Latino immigrants in downtown Los Angeles. The center is co-sponsored by the California Hospital Medical Center and UCLA.

Officials hope donations will bring in about 2,000 books, which will be used in the center’s literacy program and also passed on to local public schools with which it works.

Kropenske said Hope Street has arranged to funnel books to 10 elementary and middle schools, many of which lack reading materials to offer their students.

The downtown region where most Hope Street families live, she added, has the lowest literacy rate in the city.

“While the parents themselves might not have high literacy,” Kropenske said, “they have very high aspirations for their children in terms of educational achievement.”