Our Beginnings

Nov 7

Once upon a time, in a faraway town called Chapel Hill, a small group of parishioners of the Church of the Holy Family reached out to the community and noticed scores of children from low-income families struggling with reading skills unable to pay for tutoring.

In a city known for flowering dogwoods, azaleas, being the first public university in the United States, and electrifying sporting events, this Outreach Committee banded together in 1994 to serve the children who most needed it. With the support of Father Tim Kimbrough, Rector of the Church of the Holy Family, Linda McDonough founded the organization.

Linda had a vision and an idea. She started the program when she met Josh, an eighth-grade boy, and had the opportunity to tutor him. At their first meeting, Josh was reading at a fourth-grade level. Linda's Orton-Gillingham background provided the skills to improve Josh's literacy skills. Linda and Josh worked together for three years.

Without Linda's help, Josh may have become a sad statistic: nearly 60% of students with learning disabilities drop out of school, and prison populations include a heavy percentage of nonreaders.

Fortunately, Linda witnessed a transformation in Josh’s life and the Augustine Literacy Project was born.

The plan was to train volunteers to teach reading, writing, and spelling to youth whose families could not afford essential, one-to-one, research-based intervention. The combination of nurture and knowledge an Augustine tutor offered became a struggling student's key to success in school and life.

And so it began. In the coming years, families, social workers, and classroom teachers referred many children to “the project.” Linda and Josh took the first steps towards helping students succeed in school and life.