Scrabble tournament may help literacy program survive

How does a local family literacy program continue without the federal dollars that helped create and sustain it for more than a decade? In a word: S-c-r-a-b-b-l-e.

Madison Family Literacy—which helps poor families develop literacy skills and prepare their children for kindergarten—is hoping to raise $50,000 with an all-city/all-campus Scrabble tournament, according to Patricia La Cross, who coordinates the East Madison program based at the Northport/Packer Community Learning Center in Madison, Wisconsin.

Federal funding for the Madison effort will end in June, and it is not yet known if more federal money will be available, La Cross said. Rather than waiting until that federal support disappears, La Cross said, the program is looking for new sources of money to maintain its existing level of services to about 100 families a year. Read the story in The Wisconsin State Journal online.