While at the library making copies one day in 2018, Gregory Hill looked up and saw a sign that read “Adult Literacy Center: Read, Learn Help.” At 65-years-old, he thought his chances of fulfilling his lifelong dream of learning to read and write were “pretty slim.”
That all changed that day thanks to a program run by the Los Angeles Public Library. He was paired with a tutor — a volunteer attending nursing school — who helped him see his dreams come true.
“It opened up doors that I thought would never be open at the age of 65 and the challenges that I’ve gone through in my life,” an emotional Hill explained in a video about the program’s impact.
Hill was one of the 43 million adults in the United States who struggled with adult literacy — people who have aged out of the K-12 system but cannot read, write, or do math above a third-grade level. It’s a problem that costs our economy trillions of dollars every year, and makes it more difficult for people to live healthy, fulfilled lives — but as the library’s program shows, it doesn’t have to be this way.