|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By Margaret Simmons
Three current members of the Literacy Partners Menlo Park board didn’t need to be told that too many people in their community — one of the world’s most affluent — couldn’t read, write or speak English well enough to get a viable job, progress in vocational training, or help their kids do their homework.
In the late 2010s, volunteers John Schniedwind and Mike Goodkind served a steady flow of adult literacy learners from the local community who spent evenings improving their English through the Menlo Park Public Library’s Project Read program.
San Mateo County is a study in contrasts, based on the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2018-2022. While 90.8% of persons over 25 in the county are high school graduates, overall 44.8% speak a language other than English at home and 16.3% of residents identify as Limited English Proficient.
“Statistics aside, it didn’t take long for John [Schniedwind] and I to see just how much need there was locally for some pretty basic educational services when we saw people coming into the library for help. These were neighbors or near neighbors, they had kids who attended classes and played on the same sports teams as our kids. So many parents — I personally encountered hundreds — were anxious or even desperate to gain the tools to communicate — with their colleagues at work, supervisors, their kids’ teachers and health caregivers, even their kids’ team members, coaches and neighbors,” Goodkind said.
Heriberto Madrigal didn’t need any prompting or education to see literacy services as a local issue. Madrigal already well understood the educational divide while growing up in Menlo Park’s Belle Haven neighborhood with parents, he said, who were encouraging to him but spoke no English. Madrigal worked as a library page at 14. Now a professional librarian with an MLS degree, Madrigal joined the LPMP board in 2022.
Through 2024, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit has distributed more than $250,000 to seven highly local organizations (including the Menlo Park Library) that serve clients from toddlers to seniors, Schniedwind, LPMP’s current treasurer, noted. “The needs are ongoing as individuals improve their skills, new arrivals take their places,” Goodkind said.
The latest three latest LPMP grants in 2024, highlight community need, from toddlers to seniors:
• All Five (allfive.org) provides toddler and preschool education in Belle Haven, where scores on annual state proficiency exams are significantly below California norms. Early childhood education has been proven to give kids a jump start in brain development and learning. LPMP stepped up for a second year with a $30,000 grant to support an onsite speech-language therapist, an urgent need not met by All Five’s other funding. All Five uses a sliding scale tuition that is free for the lowest income families but attracts tuition-paying students, thus representing a broad community resource and quality program that serves kids wherever they go on to elementary school.
• East Palo Alto Kids (epak.org) provides hundreds of small — typically $750 — micro-grants to primary and middle school teachers in eastern Menlo Park and East Palo to provide to their own kids such enhancements as field trips, science equipment, musical instruments and basic classroom supplies often taken for granted from parent resources. LPMP granted $15,000 to impact more teachers and kids in 2024.
• Rosalie Rendu Center (Rosalie-rendu-center.org) offers English language and related education to community adults, including seniors. The Center came to LPMP with a request for $22,017 to expand its English as a second language (ESL) classes to include a 34-week evening session held locally.As one student put it, “It’s wonderful because I can work in the morning and the schedule is magnificent.”
Since 2021, LPMP has also provided support for selected projects at Job Train (jobtrainworks.org), StreetCode (streetcode.org), Ravenswood Classroom Partners (ravenswoodclassroompartners.org), and the Menlo Park Public Library (menlopark.gov/library).
Learn more at literacypartnersmenlopark.org.
Donate online: mightycause.com/organization/Literacypartnersmenlopark
By check: 1259 El Camino Real #176, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Literacy Partners Menlo Park is one of the beneficiaries of The Almanac’s Holiday Fund. Donations are divided equally among this year’s 10 nonprofit organizations and 100% of the funds raised go directly to the recipients. Donations to the Holiday Fund can be made at almanacnews.com/holiday_fund.
Margaret Simmons is an LPMP board member.
Change of plans: Research campus to leave Menlo Park, make way for more housingJune 12, 2026 6:46 pm