LIMA — There was almost palpable tension at times as teams hovered over the iconic Scrabble board, racking their brains for the perfect way to incorporate that triple word score square to get the highest point value before time expired.
For all 14 teams of four participating, these demonstrations of laudable language skills were all part of helping others in the community learn the joy of words and reading during the 12th annual Northwest Ohio Literacy Council’s Scrabble FUNdraiser held Saturday at St. Rita’s Auxiliary Conference Center. Saturday’s event raised between $6,000 and $7,000 for the organization.
While a normal game of Scrabble involves opponents looking to outdo one another with their word building prowess, the format for this event was different, according to Literacy Council Executive Director Kenneth Blanchard.
“When we talk about Scrabble, everybody thinks of the old Scrabble board and seven letters,” he said. “This is much more creative and freer because you have four people, all the tiles are face up and you have a half-hour or 20 minutes to build as many words as they can. The creative teams use the X’s and Q’s, all the tricks they can think of.”
While having fun with wordplay, the participants helped raise money for the Literacy Council to help meet its mandate of helping adults overcome reading difficulties, a mandate it has maintained for the past 30 years.
“Our mission is working with adults to improve their reading, writing, numeracy and computer skills,” Blanchard said. “Across the nation, we have one in six adults who read at about a third-grade level or below, and it just hasn’t changed.”
Having issues with literacy or computer skills can severely limit an individual’s opportunities to lead a full life, Blanchard said, impairing opportunities for employment and other advancements.
“We see generational illiteracy,” he said. “We’ve got grandparents that we’ve seen 20 years ago and we have parents here saying they didn’t have books, newspapers, magazines, Bibles, anything. It wasn’t important to them. We see their kids struggling in third and fourth grade having trouble, and the schools can only do so much.”
As a partner of the United Way of Greater Lima, the Literacy Council has the same mandates of helping individuals in the area become more self-sufficient and employable, but it is continuing to look for help from the community.
“We are always looking for tutors,” Blanchard said. “The only requirement is that you want to share the love of reading with someone else.”
To learn about the mission of the literacy council or to volunteer, call 419-223-0252 or go to www.limaliteracy.net.
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