Head Start and Loudoun Literacy partnered in 1998 to create the Family Literacy Program, which serves 100 families with 4-year-olds heading into the school system in the following year. Thirty of those families speak Spanish, six or seven times as many as in 1994, when Basham joined Head Start. Five of the families are from the Middle East.
Some of those families will be attending the council's 25th anniversary event tonight at the Belmont Country Club, which will include remarks by volunteers, tutors and the students themselves.
Delia Fox, a native of Argentina, participates in an English class conducted by the Loudoun Literacy Council.
(Photos Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post)
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Delia Fox arrived in Virginia in September after spending two years in Boston, as her husband earned his MBA from Harvard University. Although Fox's husband learned English in his native Denmark, she had little opportunity to do so in Argentina.
After three months of attending Loudoun Literacy courses once a week, supplemented by watching television and conversing with her husband, Fox has an intermediate level understanding of English.
Fox was a successful TV journalist in her country, which is what drives her to spend time with the language, she said. In Argentina, she was wealthy and had a maid to clean the house -- very different from her current situation, in which she struggles to afford day care for her daughter in Leesburg, she said.
"I want to live here in the United States," Fox said. "My husband has an opportunity now to work. In a couple months, I'd like to get permission to work. . . . Living in the U.S. will be better for my daughter."
Twitchel, the literacy group co-founder, said the tutors have tried to create informal partnerships with companies that tend to employ non-native English speakers.
"Now some of the tutors go into landscape companies, and they pay for the books for all of their people to learn," she said. "In the summer we had landscaping companies call on us to teach their hired help. The Holiday Inn did a similar thing and gave [the employees] the time to do it."
Ruiz was drawn to the organization, which she has headed for less than six months, because she had a similar background to many of the students. Ruiz moved with her family to Northern Virginia when she was 5, only having learned a few words of English.
"I had to come to this country and learn another language, so I'm sensitive to these people's plight," Ruiz said. "I want them to know that you don't have to be washing dishes somewhere."
As the program's new director, Ruiz said she wants to put more emphasis on computer literacy, health literacy, GED and TOEFL training. Ruiz added she hopes to start a literacy program in conjunction with the county corrections department to help non-violent offenders in jail learn to read.
Ruiz's goals include workforce development, such as assisting local businesses in making sure they have literate employees, and taking her tutors into homeless shelters to teach reading and writing.
But the group's $100,000 to $125,000 annual budget is meager compared with those of neighboring counties such as Fairfax, Ruiz said, and threatens to curb her ability to expand the council beyond its current programs.
