MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Every Tuesday as part of our Greater Memphis on a Mission series, we highlight organizations making Memphis better. This week, our Corie Ventura caught up with a group that believes in helping people of all ages and backgrounds achieve critical literacy skills.

Literacy Mid-South is a non-profit organization that addresses literacy challenges. They do so by providing tutoring programs for kids and adult education sessions and they expand access to literacy resources.

Eureka McAfee is the principal of Alcy Elementary School. Reading is the foundation for everything and to make sure each student excels, they brought in Literacy Mid-South for extra support for students who were struggling.

“If you cannot read, you cannot do math, science, social studies, anything. So it’s very important to be able to read and comprehend what you’re reading,” McAfee said. “If they missed that mark in third grade, there’s going to have to be a lot of work to close those instructional gaps for those students. So, catching them right there in third grade is very beneficial for the students.”

“We are working on saturating our community with literacy resources and skills across the lifespan for Memphians,” said John Nichols, interim CEO of Literacy Mid-South. “I think a misconception about literacy is that somehow the individual is at fault for that literacy gap when in actuality there is a whole host of possible reasons why that could exist. A lot of times there are systemic reasons that exacerbate these issues that really aren’t about someone’s poor choices. It’s really about, you know, a societal gap that is needing to be supported.”

Eick Navarro is the supervisor at Steel Warehouse and brought in Literacy Mid-South four days a week to help bridge the gap between their English and Spanish-speaking employees.

“Don’t worry about the language barrier. They’re going to work with you,” Navarro said. “We also have a lot of employees that are very knowledgeable and they are probably capable and ready to be in a supervisory position. But because of the language barrier, that’s probably one of the things that’s holding them back. If we can bridge that gap or get rid of that barrier then that’s going to allow other employees to move up in the company.”

That is why Brown Missionary Baptist Church and the Mid-South Genesis CDC donated $1,000 to Literacy Mid-South because reading can unlock endless opportunities.