Celeb literacy advocates please... If you're in Chicago on 1/17, please support our cause.

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This event has expired. Please visit this website for future opportunities: http://www.rebeccaeverlene.org/nationalcommunityserviceday2016.html

"92 million Americans have low or very low literacy skills - they cannot read above the 6th grade level. To be illiterate in America -- or anywhere for that matter -- is to be unsafe, uncomfortable and unprotected.

For the illiterate, despair and defeat serve as daily fare. A world of uncertainty rises anew with every word they confront in black and white.

Can any of us who do know how to read really understand the sadness that is associated with the inability to read? The silent humiliation that always attends it? The quiet desperation that can’t really be expressed? The hundreds of ways that those who cannot read struggle in shame to keep their secret?

While most of [you reading this ad] cannot possibly understand fully the anguish of those who cannot read, I, [JAMES EARL JONES], can because it affected my own family...

...All of us - lawmakers, reading teachers and tutors, corporate philanthropists, educators, and literacy volunteers - all of us have an important and necessary role addressing this issue."

In this passage, James Earl Jones is calling all of us to action. The Rebecca Everlene Trust Company has responded and is trying to do its part by investing in students through its Intellectual Practice, Project RED and B. Alley programs, but that can’t happen without your help.

On January 17, 2015, we will host the Mad Hatter’s Writing Workshop in Chicago where children will be invited to let go of their boundaries and join the ranks of Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, and J.R.R Tolkien; to create magical worlds out of nothing more than mere words.

With the stage set for this workshop to trump the size of any collaborative writing project Chicago has ever seen, we hope to gain your support for the cause. You can help us head off financial and academic illiteracy by attending our event or by making a donation online. Your contribution could help us make this dream event a reality, and for that, we would always be grateful.

The activities for the day are as follows:

• Creation of a simple fantasy costume (silly hat included)
• Collaborative brainstorming sessions
• Collaborative storytelling
• Artistic representation of the fantasy (drawings, sketches, etc.)

The best and most imaginative sentences will be compiled into a story all its own, and that story will be published by the Jeune Hope Content Group for all the world to see. The young authors will of course be acknowledged for all of their hard work and receive full credit.

The Rebecca Everlene Trust Company is just a small drop in the ocean of existing community organizations, but the difference that we can make is tremendous.