Carnegie Center for Literacy and Lea

Children's & family programs 2,100 people participated in programs that encourage families to learn together or children to learn new things. We primarily offered programming in person, though some was offered virtually, including some tutoring sessions. The year-round tutoring program served 262 struggling learners in grades k-12 through weekly one-on-one tutoring sessions that helped them improve in reading, writing, or math. Children found that Learning can be fun in educational classes involving reading, writing, creative writing, math, and other topics. The family fun and Learning program offered free books and fun educational activities around a central theme. The Carnegie Center provided youth meeting authors programs in title i schools, which involved a visit by a published author and free copies of the featured book. High school female and nonbinary writers in the young writers project attended intensive writing workshops and gave public readings. We continued our second year with the lexington youth poet laureate program in partnership with urban word. Through our outreach programs and book distributions to little free libraries, we gave away 3,200 free books to children. College mentoring helped high school upper classmen prepare college applications and seek financial assistance or scholarships. Of the overall children's and family program participants, 66% came from low income homes, and 75% are people of color. A majority of program expenses were funded by grants and community contributions, as nearly all of the children's and family programs were offered at no cost. for those programs with a minimal fee, scholarships were available for all children from low income families.

Arts engagement programs - the cornerstone of the Center's arts engagement programs were literary art programs, and we promoted Kentucky writers through all that we did. Carnegie provided readings through the Kentucky great writers series and say it loud series which were later rebroadcast on radio station wuky 91.3 and available as recorded videos on Carnegie's facebook page and youtube channel. The Kentucky black writers collaborative also hosted monthly burn the mic events and the black & lit book club. This year, we inducted fenton johnson, mary ann taylor-hall, george c. wolfe, billy c. clark, paul brett johnson, & mary lee settle into the Kentucky writers hall of fame during a ceremony at the historic Kentucky theater. We helped emerging writers become noticed through writing contests in a variety of forms and genres. We also continued our "homegrown authors" booth at the lexington farmers market with Kentucky authors on site to sell and sign their books. Our Carnegie classics event celebrated the sci-fi book, do androids dream of electric sheep, the inspiration for the blade runner films. Most of these programs and events were offered at no cost or for a low fee. In total, we engaged 11,000 people through these offerings and touched several thousand more through the wuky radio rebroadcasts--thanks to support from our grant funders, program partners, and contributions from the community.

Adult classes - each season, we offered a new line-up of classes in writing, world languages, business topics, and others in person, virtually, or as a hybrid. Some classes took place in partnership with our outreach locations and partners, including a library, a local grocery, a hospital, and the senior citizens Center. Members of the Kentucky black writers collaborative attended classes at no cost. Our annual three-day writing conference featured award-winning author george ella lyon as the keynote speaker, along with pitches to/feedback from literary agents and sessions delivered by several award-winning authors/writing instructors. The Carnegie Center author academy provided one-on-one mentoring, special workshops, and other support over a 9-month period while the poetry gauntlet pushed participants to generate 100 poems inside of a year. We offered one-on-one writer mentoring year-round for individuals hoping to someday be published, as well as people needing to improve business-related writing skills and documents. Manuscript consultations helped writers take their books to the next level. We served nearly 1800 adults in these programs. A majority of revenue came from grant funds and contributions so that we could hire qualified instructors while maintaining affordable fees. Scholarship rates were given to people in need.