Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning

Lexington, Kentucky offers writers a tremendous resource in the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, so it is with pleasure that I read in the Lexington Herald-Leader that the Center has been successful in its fund-raising campaign:

Even in these tough economic times as many non-profits are struggling, Lexington’s Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning is wrapping up a $1 million fund-raising campaign.

From Eagle Scouts who took on fund-raising as a project, to well-heeled philanthropists who wrote big checks, the fund-raising effort rallied some 400 community donors to save the center, which provides a variety of reading, writing and job-skills classes in a historic building by Gratz Park.

A few years ago things looked grim.

In 2003, then-Mayor Teresa Isaac slashed the budget of the literacy center, cutting the city’s $250,000 annual contribution. Since its inception in 1992, the center had operated as a “satellite” agency to the city, with the government supplying nearly all of its funding. The city also handled paying the center’s bills and meeting payroll. The announcement about funding cuts was made in April. The doors were set to close in June.

But petitions were circulated, letters were written and some 500 people rallied in support of the center, and a compromise was struck.

I am pleased to say that I took part in that original rally to save the Carnegie Center, one of the few successful events of its kind I’ve ever been involved with.

I have learned most of what I know about how to write in courses at the Carnegie Center and I am involved in a writing group that meets in one of its rooms, so I am more grateful than I can say to all those who have worked so hard to keep this great resource alive.