According to the Loudoun Literacy Council, a Leesburg-based nonprofit, 1 out of every 8 residents of Loudoun County is functionally illiterate.

Functional illiteracy is defined as being unable to read English beyond a fourth grade level.

The Loudoun Literacy Council will be marking it's twenty-fifth year of serving the Loudoun community on February 17th, and the organization hopes to use that occasion to raise awareness of both the council's work and Loudoun's growing problem with literacy.

According to the organization's Executive Director, Yadir Ruiz, illiteracy rates in Loudoun are much worse than they were only ten years ago, when 1 out of every 10 Loudouners were functionally illiterate.

"What it means to victims of illiteracy is that they cannot read a basic training manual, cannot communicate effectively and cannot perform simple arithmetic computations. What this means to Loudoun is that these individuals are stuck in an endless cycle of dependency on unemployment and other social services furnished by you, our County government." said Ruiz in a recent address to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors.

Ironically, much of the increase in illiteracy is related to Loudoun's rapid growth. Loudoun county is the fastest growing county in the United States, and many of those moving to Loudoun are immigrants from other countries, for whom the English language itself is a major obstacle to literacy.

"Twenty years ago, literacy wasn't such an immigrant issue, but recent rapid growth has attracted many people to the county, including migrant workers." said Ruiz. "While many of these new residents to Loudoun may be technically skilled workers and educated professionals in their home countries, their lack of facility with English often allows them to work only menial jobs. These are not just McDonald's workers, these are very educated individuals from other countries stuck cleaning toilets because they can't read." said Ruiz.

The Loudoun Literacy Council was founded in 1980 as a resource of the Regional Refugee Resettlement Office to combat precisely these kinds of literacy problems. The non-profit has grown along with Loudoun since that time and battles the county's illiteracy problem with two main programs.

The first helps families through a Family Literacy program, which focuses on non-English speaking parents of young children.

While Loudoun county schools do have English-as-a-Second-Language programs, the Loudoun Literacy Council doesn't believe these are sufficient, especially when young children don't speak English at home.

"If the parents of children can't read, how can that kid be educated?" said Ruiz. "Kids spend five or six hours at school versus all the time they spend with their parents. We work with the whole family."

Tutors in the council's Family Literacy program work to help both the parents and small children read and speak English, and are closely involved with Head Start, a county program that helps young children of at-risk homes get prepared for kindergarten.

The Loudoun Literacy Council's second major program is geared towards adult literacy. In this program, tutors for the council work to teach English to adult students from over forty different countries, with students ranging in age from eighteen to forty-three.

"Our students come from all over the place. We have busboys and we have computer programmers from the Eastern Bloc", said Ruiz.

Adult applicants take a placement test to see how much they need to learn and then must be put on a waiting list of three to six months for classes due to the large demand. The classes taught within the Adult Literacy program are not limited to reading and speaking English, but include cultural education and citizenship courses as well.

Recently appointed, Director Ruiz has plans to expand the Council's role. According to Ruiz, the Council gets lots of requests for a program to teach children to read by themselves, a program not currently covered by the Loudoun Literacy Council's services. "Many kids, even non-ESL kids need help reading, and not everybody can afford Sylvan learning center," said Ruiz.

In order to grow, the Council faces some challenges. Recently, the Virginia Department of Education cut funding to the Loudoun Literacy Council in order to focus more on programs emphasizing GEDs. Without that Department of Education funding, the Council has to depend on one or two grants and a smattering of private donations.

"That level of funding is certainly not enough to allow us to expand or improve. We can be more. Our current services are crucial and needed." said Ruiz.

Also hindering the Council is the disparity between the supply of tutors and the demand for them. Since tutors are unpaid volunteers and work usually with small classes of five to six students, it is often hard to match prospective students with teachers. Even when students and teachers can be matched up, they are challenged to find places to meet.

"We are constantly challenged for meeting space. We have a tiny office in Leesburg . . .and not many places can accommodate a class of five or six people. We need to reach out to the community to get access to more resources." said Ruiz.

The need to reach out is what prompted Ruiz to address the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors on February 1st, which she did to raise awareness of Loudoun's literacy problems. The Board of Supervisors will be officially recognizing the work of the Loudoun Literacy Council on February 15, and the Council will have it's own anniversary celebration at the Belmont Country Club February 17 from 4:30-7:30 p.m.

The events honoring the work of the Council will feature remarks from community leaders, volunteers, tutors, and students.

For more information on the Loudoun Literacy Council, please contact them on the web at www.loudounliteracy.org or by mail at Loudoun Literacy Council, Inc. P.O. Box 1932 Leesburg, VA 20177