ALC is a nonprofit, 501c3 organization and needs your help to keep our programs alive. Contributions are always needed. Funding, in kind, new ideas to raise funds, support for classes, events and individual students are always WELCOME. Please contact Linda V. McCrossan, Executive Director, at 610-435-0680, [email protected].
THE NEED CONTINUES
While the ALC is proud of all of its successes, it realizes that the need continues for neighborhood-based adult education services in the Lehigh Valley. Consider these statistics:
- More than 25% of adults in Allentown lack a high school diploma or GED certificate.
- The number of residents in Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton who said they spoke Spanish instead of English at home has risen 87% in the past decade. Of those persons, 40% said they spoke English at a level less than "very well."
- 15.3% of Lehigh County residents speak a language other than English - a number more than twice the state average.
- According to the 2000 census, the population of the entire Lehigh Valley region is 25% Latino - double what it was a decade before.
- According to the 2000 census, 10.2% of Lehigh county residents are members of the Latino community - a number three times the state average.
- High school dropouts in 1997 earned 42% less than high school grads and were four times more likely to be unemployed.
- Half of all Fortune 500 companies provide remedial skills training, at an annual cost of $300 million per year.
- Over 40% of the adults at the lowest literacy level are living in poverty.
- Nationally, 84% of unemployed fathers, and 82% of unemployed mothers lacked a high school diploma.
- Fewer than 60% of people with low literacy skills who were not in a program like the ones offered at ALC voted during a five-year period. Conversely, 80 to 90 percent of adults with high literacy skills voted in the same period.
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