Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Literacy Volunteers of Gloucester, Inc., believes that if you teach an adult to read you inspire the world to change.

Did you know that for the past 30 years, Literacy Volunteers of Gloucester has been working diligently to teach adults to read, to write and to do basic math? Why, you might ask? The answer is simple: It is because literacy changes everything.

Statistics show that 14 percent of adults over 16 years of age read at or below a fifth grade level, 29 percent only read at the eighth grade level, and among those with the lowest literacy rates, 43 percent live in poverty. Seventy-five percent of state prison inmates and 59 percent of federal prison inmates did not complete high school or can be classified as low literate. It is estimated that low literacy adds an estimated $230 billion to the country’s annual health care cost.

When adults learn to read, to write, or to do basic math, the changes in their lives are nothing short of extrao...