Jim Ziolkowski, founder, president and CEO of buildOn, a nonprofit organization working to break the cycles of poverty, illiteracy and low expectations through service and education, was the guest speaker at last Wednesday evening’s Love of Literacy Author Series to benefit Literacy Services of Indian River County.
Before his lecture, roughly 100 guests enjoyed cocktails and hors d’oeuvres and perused an array of silent auction items at the elegant affair, held at the Windsor Beach Club.
“We’ve known Jim Ziolkowski at least 15 years through our involvement with the organization he envisioned and founded. My husband was on the board of buildOn. When we were asked to chair this, my husband Dennis immediately thought of Jim. Everything he’s doing is about improving literacy,” said Barclay Kass. “He builds schools in third world countries with students from America living in underserved areas such as the south Bronx. We’re showing the kids here who think they have nothing that they have everything.”
“Jim’s philosophy is that each one of us is empowered to change the world,” said Dennis Kass before introducing Ziolkowski, who spoke about the remarkable organization he founded in 1991 to address illiteracy, both in impoverished areas of the United States as well as in some of the world’s poorest countries.
In this country, buildOn runs programs in 50 high schools in under-resourced urban areas of Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York, the Bay Area and southern Connecticut, mobilizing students there to improve their communities through intensive service.
Still other students have helped buildOn construct close to 900 schools in Burkina Faso, Haiti, Mali, Malawi, Nepal, Nicaragua and Senegal.
“We’re taking urban youth out of the most economically depressed areas of the United States, and taking them to impoverished nations to help provide education by building schools within the villages,” said Ziolkowski. He stressed that they require the entire village be invested in the effort and must all agree that half the students will be girls.
“BuildOn is not a charity; it has become a movement. Kids are united behind service; they’re stepping up,” said Ziolkowski, noting that the students have contributed 1.7 million hours of service to date. “Ninety-three percent of kids that get involved graduate high school and go to college; it’s a proven link.”
Similar to buildOn, Literacy Services is working to eradicate illiteracy on our doorstep, said Dennis Kass. Literacy Services provides free, confidential, one-to-one tutoring to anyone 16 or older and, when requested, group or family literacy tutoring. Despite little support for adult literacy and no government funding, studies stress that in order to improve a child’s academic success, the literacy skills of the parent or caregiver must also be developed.
Literacy Services executive director Mary Silva said that their students and teachers have the same tenacious attitude as Ziolkowski, quoting from his book, “Walk in Their Shoes”: “I will never give up; I will never give up; I will never give up.”
Guests also heard from model Literacy Services student Flor DeLeon. After diligently working with her tutor Julia Whelan, DeLeon said she now reads for fun and can help her daughter with her school work.
