Friends of Literacy & the Mission for Education

These are just a few statistics on literacy Knoxville's Friends of Literacy combats in its mission to provide the Knoxville area with adult education programs.

Formed in 1991, the organization's mission at that time was to provide funding for adult continuing education programs, as while these were part of the Knox County school system, there were expenses for these classes the county could not fund out of its state or federal monies. The initial adult education programs on literacy were a fundraising arm like Friends of the Library or Friends of the Smokies. Their only intention was to raise money for adult continuing education programs through Knox County schools, but about a decade later they had evolved to providing adult education classes focused on reader programs. The county schools had lost the resources to conduct beginning reading programs, so Friends of Literacy took over.

In 2016, a Tennessee legislation moved adult education out of the county school systems, with management of those programs being given to different entities across the state. Tennessee College of Applied Technology (TCAT) is now the state-funded resource for adult education, but this program is under the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, with a focus on vocational training and high school equivalency test preparation (HiSET). This left a gap for adults who needed to improve their education but were not ready to take the test for a high school diploma – and this is where Friends of Literacy comes in.

"Our mission is to improve adult literacy and education in East Tennessee," says Teresa Brittain, Friends of Literacy's Executive Director. "So we do everything from adult beginning reading classes to adult basic education, which is roughly equivalent to grades one through eight, and we are the only provider [in the Knoxville area] of those services... We also do some HiSET prep primarily for students who have gone to TCAT and found that program moved a little too fast for them. The TCAT HiSET prep classes are sort of fast track. They're really good for students who recently dropped out of high school and still remember a lot of what they've learned, but they move a little quickly for adults who maybe didn't progress as far in school or who have been out of school longer."

Brittain stresses that Friends of Literacy is a critical service in the Knoxville area because it prevents employers from having to go back and do remedial training for employees who do not have basic reading and math skills. Friends of Literacy makes an effort to incorporate practical life lessons into instruction, such as showing students how to balance a check book or putting fractions into the context of food preparation. Friends of Literacy not only wants to teach students foundational skills but also strives for them to understand the context of their learning: why it's important to read, why writing is essential, why math is crucial to successfully navigating practical life scenarios.

As executive director, Brittain holds one of the organization's few full-time positions. She oversees a small staff and says Friends of Literacy couldn't do what it does without its dedicated and committed group of 45 volunteers.

"We have a full-time program director who oversees all of our instructional programs," says Brittain. "Then we have a part-time development assistant who helps with fundraising like with Food with Friends. We have a part-time program assistant, and we have two part-time instructors, so that's it for our staff. We have a bookkeeper that we contract with, and we have an office assistant that we get through a senior assistant employment program. But those are folks we do not pay. Most of the volunteers come at least twice a week to work with our students. We're open for students Monday through Thursday, 10:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. We try to have instruction on days and times that work for students who are particularly busy in the evenings because we have a lot of students who come in when they get off work. We're always busy!"

Food and Literacy

Friends of Literacy's Food with Friends fundraising events first began in July 2018, making it a fairly new program for the group. The organization asks eateries to commit for a six-month period, with one cycle running from January to June and another from July to December. Restaurants that participate in Food with Friends agree that on the second Tuesday of each month, they will donate back to the organization a portion of that day's sales.

"We do a lot of promotion," says Brittain. "We provide the partner restaurants with signage. They get easel signs and posters that they can hang up. We promote the events very heavily on Facebook and Instagram because we want the restaurants to feel like they're getting some marketing value from this partnership. We all go to the restaurants, and we encourage our board members to go to the restaurants. People take photographs of their food and post them on Instagram and Facebook. I think it's been good. I think it's driven some new traffic into the restaurants, and it's certainly been a good boost for our funding.

Brittain believes the fundraising night also has some benefits for participating restaurants, especially with the organization going above and beyond to promote their active eateries.

"Sticky Rice has been a good example," says Brittain. "One of my board members is friends with [Sticky Rice Cafe's owner] Kahn. That's how they became involved, so we started going there. We've actually had a couple committee meetings there [and] we've scheduled committee meetings for Food with Friends day, and the food is great, so I've taken all the family there. And I've told a lot of people about Sticky Rice. I think [Food with Friends] is good for the restaurants, and I think it's good for us as well."

Brittain admits the idea for Food with Friends was inspired by a similar event hosted by Oak Ridge's Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties, Dine and Donate. Friends of Literacy liked the idea but feared it lacked the contacts to execute it and didn't want to in any way negatively affect ADFAC's fundraising success. Ultimately, Friends of Literacy felt comfortable implementing Food with Friends because the two organizations have separate territories, with Friends of Literacy covering the Knoxville area and ADFAC working in Oak Ridge and Anderson County. Both are respectful of one another's space and have different event fundraising days.

Since Friends of Literacy's board members each had different contacts with local restaurants, many went out to network with the community and foster the developing event, and the majority of the participating restaurants have held steady throughout the organization's intermittent cycles.

So how does it work?

"If someone is going to eat at a restaurant because it's a Food with Friends day, we encourage them to be sure to tell their server that they're there because of Food with Friends and they appreciate the restaurant supporting Friends of Literacy," says Brittain. "But beyond that, it's an honor system for the restaurants. If they commit to give us 5 percent of sales for that day, it's up to them. We're not there to enforce anything. We rely on the restaurants to keep track and write us a check. Khan writes her check every other month. Some of the restaurants pay one check at the end of the six months. We go around the day of the event, and we take our staff. We take photos, we drop off brochures about our program, so they have information about us in case anyone asks."

Friends of Literacy is kicking off August with a new program for Food with Friends day that gives patrons a monthly diner card. Servers will initial or stamp the date box for each customer's diner card, and every month the guest returns to a Food with Friends-participating restaurant for the rest of the year, they will receive an additional stamp or signature. In December, those with full diner cards will be entered into a drawing for a $100 Visa gift card.

But Food with Friends isn't the only way Friends of Literacy conducts community outreach with local restaurants.

"We have a [bachelor auction] event every year at the end of March," laughs Brittain. "It sounds a bit more risqué than it really is. We have around 20 professional men, [ranging] in age from 24 up into their 60s…and all the guys go out in advance of the bachelor auction and they do fundraising [with] GoFundMe pages and [by asking] their family and friends and colleagues for donations. But also a lot of the bachelors either work at [restaurants] or know restaurant owners, so they will do things like a celebrity bartending event or a pint night. Every bachelor comes with a date package that [includes] dinner and a fun activity, and we get gift certificates from restaurants all over town."

Friends of Literacy in the Kitchen

The restaurant industry workforce includes a diverse population of employees who have varying education levels, and organizations like Friends of Literacy can help inadequately educated employees improve their skills and advance within the industry. When we asked Brittain if she knew how Friends of Literacy's work had benefitted an employee of an area restaurant, she immediately recalled a student in his late 20s who was working at a fast food restaurant, making minimum wage, and had just become a father.

"[His daughter] was his motivation to come back to school," says Brittain. "He said he knew if he didn't improve his education, he was going to be stuck working minimum wage jobs, and he was never going to be able to do right by his daughter. He wanted to improve his education so he could get a better job, and he came to us. He was with us close to a year, and he just really excelled, really improved his reading [and] his math, and he got a [better] job offer. That was huge for him because it meant he could move out of an apartment that he did not think was very safe, that was in subsidized housing. He was able to move out of that and move into a nicer apartment in a nicer neighborhood, and that was just life changing for him and for his family."

Those interested in supporting Friends of Literacy can go to its website to find information about how to donate and volunteer. Online volunteer applications are available on the website as well, along with information about adult education classes, who they serve, and more.

Friends of Literacy will be recruiting restaurants in October and November for the new cycle that starts in January and goes to June of 2020. Any restaurants in the Knoxville, Tenn., area that are interested in participating can email Brittain at teresa@friendsofliteracy.org.