Capacity Expansion and Outreach

OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS

We have learned alongside our Community Partners as they have faced challenges, overcome barriers, and achieved extraordinary successes. Find out more about each project and the outcomes below.

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YEAR

2006

GRANT CATEGORY

Education

GRANT AMOUNT

$108,000

Organization:

LifeWorks (fka Literacy Austin)

Project Title:

Capacity Expansion and Outreach

Project Description:

The mission of Literacy Austin is to provide basic literacy and English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction for adults, age 17 and older, who read below the fifth-grade level. Literacy Austin is now the largest provider of free adult basic literacy classes and ESL classes for adults in Central Texas.

The Impact Austin grant will provide a classroom build-out in their unused building space and hire a part-time off-site coordinator. These measures will enable the agency to respond more quickly to adult learners’ requests for services and reduce the waiting list. As a result, Literacy Austin will be able to tutor 49 percent more clients on site and meet the needs of more individuals in other areas of Austin.

Grant Status:

Literacy Austin created a large training room and several small classrooms from unfinished space at the Center as proposed, increasing student capacity by 49%. The new classroom space is used extensively, nearly full at peak busy periods. Two hundred new students were enrolled at the Center by the end of 2007.

In addition, Literacy Austin far exceeded their goal of doubling the number of remote locations for instruction. By the end of the grant period, the offsite coordinator (hired with Impact Austin grant funds) had increased offsite locations from five to 16 and the number of students served remotely from 43 to 169, five more than the target.

Since LifeWorks absorbed the Literacy Austin organization in January 2008, it has continued and expanded these educational services, including them with its own GED classes into LifeWorks’ “Literacy Programs.” In 2008, LifeWorks placed a total of 929 clients in this educational program.