Since it began three years ago, the Literacy Coalition of the Permian Basin has grown its literacy efforts and made people across 22 counties in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico more aware of the importance of reading.
They are also planning for a big literacy symposium in April at the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center and CEED Building with Texas first lady Cecilia Abbott as the opening keynote speaker. The date is April 23 and the event runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
A development panel with Mark Palmer from the Abell-Hanger Foundation, Joni Hires from the FMH Foundation and Tracee Bentley from the Permian Strategic Partnership will be featured. Literacy Coalition Executive Director John Trischitti said there will also be a speaker from the energy sector and a corporate panelist who is non-energy related.
There will be breakout sessions in the morning and afternoon on topics such as early childhood, adult English as a second language, financial literacy and health literacy.
Trischitti said the organization is focusing on rural and outlying areas, trying to grow services and provide programs where none exist.
The POWER Bag program has extended out to hospitals in outlying counties. A POWER Bag is provided to every mother who gives birth at Medical Center Hospital, Midland Memorial Hospital, Odessa Regional Medical Center, Pecos County Memorial Hospital, Reeves Regional Health, Scenic Mountain Medical Center and Covenant Health Hobbs Hospital.
Upon discharge from the hospital, medical staff provide mothers with information about the importance of speaking, interacting, and reading to the newborn, the coalition website says.
The coalition also is partnering with libraries in the region to provide literacy programs.
“The library in Kermit is doing some adult literacy that Odessa College is facilitating for us. That is a program that did not exist previously. They reached out to us and said we really feel like there’s a need, so we reached out to our partner Odessa College and they said we’d love to do that. We need for 20 people to commit for it to ‘make,’” Trischitti said.
They advertised it locally and on the day of registration for the class, they were hoping to get 20 people. Trischitti said 127 turned out.
“That really shows the need is there. There was no literacy program happening prior to that in Winkler County and now that exists. That’s the leveraging of relationships that the Literacy Coalition is being able to build and grow that out,” Trischitti said.
“We’re doing something similar in Midland County. The Warren Foundation is funding a pilot program. We’re going to partner with the Midland County libraries and do something similar (to) try to create programs and create a pipeline for people that need the service,” he added.
Trischitti said there are a lot of great programs in Odessa and Midland with Catholic Charities and Casa de Amigos, for example, but there’s only so much capacity so they want to partner with others to increase that.
The coalition has also awarded subgrants the last two years.
“The first year, we distributed about $63,000 to a variety of literacy programs in the area. This last year when we distributed in November, we had more new applications than we did total applications the year previous which kind of tells us that the program is successful. People are hearing about it and it’s really filling a need for those organizations. We distributed just over $80,000 this year,” Trischitti said.
“That program continues to grow, especially as providers are aware of it. … A lot of these organizations are smaller and so they may not have a development person or a grant writer. Being able to do our two-page grant online, specifically for a literacy program, is a little less intimidating than Abell-Hanger and FMH. … They may not be able to ask for that much money to remove the barriers as much as we can for organizations to get the help they need,” Trischitti said.
The success has helped with fundraising.
“The example I like to use is Artesia Literacy was just one employee. She had less than 10 students, did great work but didn’t really have the capacity to do much more, applied for a subgrant that first year, was able to hire tutors and more than triple the number of students that they were serving. They applied again and got it. We hope that she continues to have that kind of growth, but I think when you show the funders that it’s really making a difference, yes I think it helps the argument for future funding,” Trischitti said.
The Laura Bush Ladies for Literacy was also formed this past year.
“That initiative is going well (with) 100 members since we launched that last fall. We modeled that after the Barbara Bush Ladies for Literacy Guild down in Houston,” Trischitti said.
In Texas, 28 percent of the adult population is low literate. In Midland County, it is at 26. Approximately 157,000 adults in the Permian Basin read below the third-grade level.
Nationally, 1 out of 5 read below the third-grade level. Both Texas and New Mexico are in the bottom five for literacy rate.
“They’re both about 1 out of 4 (reading) below a third-grade level. The Permian Basin’s average, if you take all the 22 counties … is 1 out of 3,” Trischitti said.
