The Literacy Coalition of Oswego County is a growing coalition of more than 36 local organizations dedicated to improving literacy in our county. We are working together to address the literacy needs of people of all ages.

The areas we cover include:

• Basic literacy
• Workforce literacy
• Computer literacy
• Health literacy
• Financial literacy

Strong literacy skills - the ability to read, write, speak, compute, and solve problems - are essential for individuals and families to succeed in our community. Healthy communities and families have literacy at their core and are able to overcome civic, social, and economic challenges. To provide this for Oswego County, we must address that up to 17,000 of the Oswego’s population functions at the lowest level of literacy.

While low literacy levels are associated with unemployment, poverty, family instability, crime, and poor economic development, improved literacy can empower individuals to:

• Gain access to information and resources
• Have a voice to express ideas and opinions with confidence
• Take action to solve problems and make decisions
• Learn in order to keep up with the world as it changes

With this in mind, the Literacy Coalition of Oswego County is dedicated to supporting and expanding literacy services so that people can work, our economy can grow, families can thrive, and our community can prosper.

Effective change requires participation from ALL members of the community. The Literacy Coalition of Oswego County will provide a method for reliable and effective action. We intend to enable existing literacy programs to serve more people in Oswego County, thereby significantly and permanently decreasing illiteracy. The project will centralize information about literacy agencies and their programs, literacy events in the community and provide ways everyone can get involved or get access to participate.

At the heart of the coalition is the belief that Oswego County, united in our objective and working as a whole, can change individual expectations and behaviors. The initiative is not reinventing the wheel by creating new programs and services. The program is designed to use the power of the people to move society forward. As members of our community, we are all responsible to advocate for and participate in the advancement of literacy for all residents. At its core, the coalition is about realizing human potential; the potential of individuals and of humanity. Our premise is based on a belief that the foundation of a thriving democratic society depends on an educated populace. It is the changed attitudes and behaviors of a unified community along with efficient infrastructure and tools that will raise literacy levels permanently.

The Literacy Coalition of Oswego County is a consensus-building initiative intended to unite the community around the importance of literacy, provide economies of scale to existing organizations to efficiently service those in need, and provide hope to residents for sustainable change and an improved future.

Questions about the Literacy Coalition of Oswego County?
E-mail: Mike Egan, Literacy Coalition of Oswego County.