.....:::::The Problem : Our Solution:::::.....

In the United States and around the world, many people are broken and oppressed by illiteracy and the inability to communicate in English. Nearly 800 million people in the world are completely illiterate, according to the CIA World Factbook. These problems are real and costly to society, not just to the poor and disadvantaged. Many people in both the United States and around the world want to learn how to speak, read and write English. We work to meet these needs using computers, volunteer tutors, and Project Light One-to-One Literacy software.

We plant Learning Centers in communities where people need to learn to read, partnering with local community and faith-based organizations to fight illiteracy. We train those organizations on how to start Learning Centers and tutor students using Project Light's One-to-One Literacy & ESL Solutions. Over the years we have planted more than 500 centers in many inner cities across the United States and around the world. Project Light's One-to-One Literacy & ESL Solutions have a 28-year proven history of success. Many people's lives have been transformed as a result of being tutored in a Project Light learning center.

Photos: Logo (1); Norfolk, VA Team (2)

Program Credentials and Validation

• Project Light's programs offer extensive, academically created and validated educational content.
  
• The Zero-To-Five program was designed by the National Foundation for the Improvement of Education and the U.S. Office of Education Bureau of Education for the Handicapped. It was based on extensive research performed at Columbia University.
  
• Zero-To-Five was validated by the U.S. Department of Education in over 100 field test centers located in twenty-six states.
  
• The Light Is Coming (TLC) was developed by President of Christian Literacy Associates, William E. Kofmehl, Jr., Ph.D. It teaches basic phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, writing, and spelling.
  
• The Light is Coming has been validated and tested all over the world by Christian Literacy Associates in volunteer tutoring programs for almost 30 years.
  
• Our GED program was created by BLS Tutorsystems. It includes over 200 hours of targeted instruction to provide rapid advancement to GED competency in reading, mathematics, and grammar.

A Message from Project Light's Ministry President: Sherri Crawford

Another wonderful day at Project Light. I prayed this a.m. as we had a meeting to show our newer software. This a.m. we had the excitement to meet with a ministry called Operation Breaking Through,www.obthr.org that has been serving disadvantaged communities nearly 20 years. Operation Breaking Through previously used Project Light’s one-to-one literacy and GED programs with third generational illiterate women in the 1990s. They were so successful they were recognized by the President Bush Points of Light program. They served one-to-one over 90 adults from disadvantaged communities. This was under the direction of Rev. Gary Ham.
Rev. Kevin Brown is their current Executive Director and has continued the wonderful work of Operation Breaking Through. We met with Kevin earlier in the week. What a tremendous fellow he is serving the Lord. Kevin is retired from the U.S. Air Force, we had a wonderful meeting talking about the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. We ended our meeting because he was serving food to the poor, but he asked us back to show our newer materials to him and his technical guy, Larry. We were to meet them at one of their outreach Learning Centers. Unfortunately, Kevin’s car broke down so he was unable to join us (maybe somebody reading this will donate a new car to his ministry :). However, the Lord still worked it out for good. We met their technical guy, Larry. Larry had been up all night with his regular computer job. He does this work for Operation Breaking Through as a volunteer.
I always get reenergized when I visit the outreach and Learning Centers because this is where the Front-Line Servants are and where the “real action” takes place. Operation Breaking Through’s Center was like a “haven”. Located in the heart of an impoverished neighborhood in Newport News like so many ministries trying to help it is a like a beacon of light when you walk inside. We walked into a beautiful room, haven with books and beautiful sayings of encouragement for the children, it spoke “education, learning, reading and God”. Libraries used to be my favorite places. It was like a library but even better, God’s library. They had great books everywhere, computers and encouraging sayings for the kids. One of the sayings they had framed was “Good Morning. This is GOD! I will be handling all your problems today. I will not need your help. So, have a good day“. They let me take a copy so I did and have hung it up in our office.
Larry, their IT guy saw our stuff and said “wow”. We showed him the version of our software that works on the Internet, then the CD version. We showed him the portion of our software that addresses visual and perception problems for any student, child, teen or adult. We showed him the portion of our software that has Biblically-based stories. He said, you guys this is great stuff. Well this was just a blessing as we have worked hard to get our graphics update to date. We do not have the resources that many educational software companies have to “pretty up their packages”. So many times we compare ourselves with what is out there in the world. Jim Harrison our Outreach Director and myself left the meeting with a lighter skip in our step. God is Good. A great day at Project Light.