HARLINGEN – Cast your vote for the Harlingen Literacy Center.
If you want to support the center at 101 E. Monroe Ave. go online and cast your vote – or 10 – in the State Farm Neighborhood Assist program.
The insurance company has selected 200 nonprofit organizations across the United States from which voters can choose to give their votes. The top 40 will each receive a $25,000 grant.
The HLC could be one of those lucky organizations, if it receives enough votes.
“We are the only nonprofit that was chosen in all of South Texas,” said Linda Klowetter, director.
It’s also the only literacy center in all of Texas in the competition for the grant.
“We have a real opportunity to obtain this grant and it all hinges on people voting,” Klowetter said. “We’re sending out emails, Facebook posts, Twitter posts. We’re appealing to help us get the word out to people. It’s quick and easy and simple. It costs nothing.”
There are numerous ways for people to cast their vote. They can go to the Harlingen Literacy Center website. They can go to the Neighborhood Assist website, or the Facebook pages of each organization – to name a few.
Voting began Aug. 18 and continues through Aug. 27. People can even vote on the weekends.
“It gives you the option to cast ten votes,” she said. “They can choose to apply all ten of those votes to the literacy center, which we hope they will, or they can spread those ten votes out to other organizations.”
The HLC has an annual budget of 75,000 which it acquires through fundraisers.
However, the pandemic has prevented the nonprofit from holding any fundraisers since January 2020. The result is a cutback in expenditures which has severely impacted its services to the community, and those services are crucial to many people.
“A large part of what we do is English as a second language,” Klowetter said. “We also help people prepare for their citizenship exams. We help people prepare for their GED tests. We even have a math tutor that meets with students who are lacking in their math skills and need those skills in order to get their GED.”
The center also offers basic reading and writing instruction.
“We offer quite a variety of services to adults in our community,” she said.
“Without fundraisers, the center hasn’t been able to order the number of books we really need to operate,” Klowetter said. “We’ve been trying to use up a supply of older books in the library instead of ordering new books which we really need. We just don’t have the money.”
If the center receives the grant, better days will come.
“We would be able to upgrade our library and get the books and materials we need,” she said. “We would be able to enhance our GED program with students coming in to use the computer, taking practice tests online and have that supported by GED books that we again need to order. We would be able to expand our services if we had the money to do so.”
PLACE TO VOTE:
Harlingen Literacy Facebook Page:
www.literacycenterofharlingen.org
State Farm Neighborhood Assist Facebook Page:
www.neighborhoodassist.com
