Archive: Around Town

The Dollar General Literacy Foundation awarded the Lansing Central School District a $2,000 grant to support youth literacy. This grant is part of more than $3.4 million the organization awarded to 915 recipients on August 28, 2018. Awarded annually at the beginning of the academic school year inception, youth literacy grants help support teachers, schools and nonprofit organizations throughout the 44 states that Dollar General serves.

"The Lansing Groton Teacher Center was thrilled to be able to work in collaboration with Jennifer Kadlecik, eighth grade ELA teacher at the Lansing Middle School, to help secure funding for her book study project," said Teacher Center Director Rhody O'Donnell. "Although the Teacher Center wasn't able to fund this work out of our own budget when Ms. Kadlecik originally approached the Teacher Center last spring, we were able to reach out to our community to see what potential funding was out there for Ms. Kadlecik. After talking with our colleague Sarah O'Shea, Head of Youth Services at the Tompkins Public Library, she was able to point us in the direction of the Dollar General Youth Literacy Grant. After a few brainstorming sessions with Ms. Kadlecik, we submitted the grant proposal for the project titled, Social Justice and the Power of Reading. The proposal was submitted late spring of 2018 and we were so happy to hear that we were awarded the funding for the 2018-2019 school year. This was a beautiful example of many of the stakeholders of our school community, including our partners from the School Improvement Services at TST BOCES, coming together and helping to create a really powerful learning experience for our students."

The Social Justice book study project funded by the Dollar General Youth Literacy Grant will make it possible for Ms. Kadlecik to get over approximately 200 copies of empowering and engaging texts into the hands of her eighth grade students this year. The goal of this project is to develop student led books studies which will provide students with the opportunity to have increased dialogue around critical and timely social justice topics, while simultaneously strengthening targeted literacy skills.

"The Dollar General Literacy Foundation is proud to be an ardent supporter of schools, libraries and nonprofit literacy organizations," said Todd Vasos, Dollar General's chief executive officer. "Dollar General's mission is Serving Others, and this commitment comes to life through Dollar General Literacy Foundation grants that will impact thousands of students across the country. Since its inception 25 years ago, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has partnered with thousands of organizations focused on advancing the goals of literacy and education." 
To date, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has awarded more than $159 million in grants to schools, libraries and literacy organizations as part of its commitment to increase literacy skills for individuals of all ages.

Dollar General's co-founder, J.L. Turner, was functionally illiterate and never completed a formal education. In 1993, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation was established in his honor and has since helped more than 10 million individuals take their first steps toward literacy or continued education.

The Dollar General Literacy Foundation also supports customers interested in learning how to read, speak English or prepare for the high school equivalency test.  Customers may receive a referral to a local organization that offers free literacy services by clicking here or by picking up a brochure with a postage-paid reply card available at the cash register of every Dollar General store, which can be mailed in for information.

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