Greetings from LCNB’s President!
The mission of the Literacy Coalition is to provide leadership to advance literacy, life-long learning, and essential skills for all New Brunswickers through partnerships and collaboration with others.
This has been another productive year for the Literacy Coalition as we carry out our mission to provide leadership to advance literacy, life-long learning, and essential skills for all New Brunswickers through partnerships and collaboration with others.
In January we were thrilled to receive approval for our exciting new project entitled Talking, Singing, Reading…Everyone, Everywhere!”. With this project, we are working with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (EECD) to provide in depth literacy training to early childhood educators across the province who are becoming early literacy mentors for other educators in their facility. The Literacy Coalition has been awarded a $1.26 million grant from the Waltons Trust Foundation to partner with EECD in implementing this impactful project.
We were also pleased to receive a grant from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development allowing us to translate our “Let’s Learn!” booklets in Arabic and Ukrainian. We are now offering this valuable resource in those languages as well as both official languages and our Indigenous languages.
We continue to recognize and celebrate literacy programs and individuals with the Dr. Marilyn Trenholme Counsell Awards. In June we held our well attended Dr. Marilyn Trenholme Counsell Literacy Awards ceremony at Government House in Fredericton, where we celebrated six outstanding award recipients from across the province who have made significant contributions to literacy.
Our major fund raiser, the Literacy Gala Dinner and Auction will take place on May 6th, 2025, at the Delta Mariott Hotel in Fredericton. We are looking forward to once again celebrating the amazing work of our Literacy Champions and shining a much-deserved spotlight on incredible adult learners. Stay tuned for more details coming soon.
As an organization, we continue to support families, children, and adult learners across the province. Over the past year, these have included our annual Adult Learner’s Writing Contest, book donations, celebration of Family literacy Day, and International Book Giving Day and distribution of our “Let’s Learn!” literacy booklets for parents of young children. We continue to maintain our Referral Service – Free Learn Line and our Essential Skills website to share.
Through our meetings, newsletters, and social media, we share knowledge, information and best practices about literacy which result in more effective delivery of programs.
LCNB is proud to continue our work with the Literacy Champions Network, formed as a result of the shared passion of the twelve literacy organizations previously affiliated with the Peter Gzowski Foundation for Literacy. We once again participated in an inspiring social media campaign in September leading up to Internation Literacy Day, where we highlighted the amazing work done by organizations from coast to coast.
Our Executive Director has submitted several promising proposals for projects to benefit early childhood, family, youth and adult literacy in New Brunswick. We look forward to meeting with the new government Ministers to discuss potential partnerships and to receiving a positive response from these proposals in the new year.
I’d like to recognize the incredible efforts from everyone on the Literacy Coalition team over the past year. Thank you to our Executive Director, Lynda Homer, for her exceptional leadership and commitment. Thanks also to her remarkable staff: Susan Yarom, Administrative Assistant, Dianne Léger, Project Coordinator, and Communications Directors, Peter Jewett and Memory Gajurel, who joined us this past May. The difference you make through your hard work and dedication is truly remarkable.
Thank you to our Board of Directors, who generously donate their time and experience to the management of this worthwhile organization and to our amazing volunteers and donors. The Literacy Coalition of New Brunswick is committed to fostering and improving literacy in this province and it would not be possible without our partner organizations and individuals like yourselves.
Brent Melanson
President, Literacy Coalition of New Brunswick