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539 E. Elm St. Suite A Lebanon, MO 6553 417.532.6697
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LACLEDE LITERACY COUNCIL - : Empowering Communities
Our Impact
The Laclede Literacy Council has been making a difference in people's lives for 36 years. We help second-chance citizens achieve their HiSet, enabling them to apply for better jobs, reduce their chances of reoffending, and gain a sense of pride and accomplishment.
Our clientele isn’t limited to second chancers, though! We also help our older generation, who never thought they’d ever receive their HiSet, My favorite story this month is about a 59 year old grandmother who earned her degree and is oh so proud. Se now has two grandchildren enrolled in our literacy programs.
Our adult literacy classes are great for some students who have challenges like autism. We worked with one young man for three years who did not think he would ever attain his HiSet. When he first came to us, he kept his head down, headphones on until he was in a separate room with his tutor and wouldn’t say hi, bye, or boo to any of us. By the time he passed his fifth and final HiSet test he would come into our office, say hi to us all, read aloud to us, and leave with a smile on his face! He graduated this spring with a spring in his step and a grin on his face. His goal now is to attend college and become a psychologist, helping other children like himself.
We also had a grandmother come in and not only earn her HiSet, but also tutors others, We are now serving her husband, two of her children, and four grandchildren earn theirs. Generational lives have been touched by the work we do!
We don’t charge anyone who walks through our door for our services and with the help of MOCA some of our students even get their HiSet tests paid for. All of the books and online service we use to tutor students are free though. It is only through grants and donations from wonderful people like you that we can continue to make a difference in our community. The students we successfully help wind up becoming contributing members of our community and lessen the burden of aid they would otherwise need.
Contact Us
Have a question or want to get in touch? We'd love to hear from you. Contact the adult education center today and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Donate
Your contribution can make a big difference in the lives of those we serve. Donate today to help support our mission of providing adult literacy classes and empowering communities.
Funding Cut to Literacy Council hurts
Our Impact
A Funding Cut to a Literacy Program Hits the Most Vulnerable in Small Missouri Town
By losing its federal funding, the organization lost almost all its means to provide continuing education that fed into local economic development. For some of its beneficiaries, it was a literal lifeline.by Kaitlyn McConnell August 21, 2025
The Laclede Literacy Council is based in Lebanon, Missouri, a community known for its trout fishing and place on Route 66. One of the school’s former librarians, Eleanor Ford, is recognized through a mural for her role as a longtime advocate for literacy. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
For more than 30 years, the Laclede Literacy Council has made a difference for rural Missourians seeking to improve their lives through the written word. In recent years, those efforts have grown to include passing the HiSET high school equivalency exam, becoming U.S. citizens, improving media literacy, and more.
In recent times, a team of 18 tutors were paid living allowances, which helped them to devote meaningful time to the project, and grew their capacity to nearly 100 consecutive clients in 2025.
That work changed in early July with one email: The center would lose $249,000 it expected to receive from AmeriCorps in 2025-2026 as part of a three-year grant cycle, nearly eliminating the organization’s entire workforce.
“It was a shock,” said Dr. Carol Barsby, the center’s executive director. “On April 30, DOGE made cuts at the AmeriCorps, and they cut from 27 programs to eight programs in the state of Missouri, and we were one of those eight programs that met the new government criteria at that point in time. So we were pretty confident that we were okay. And we heard from our person at ServMO [the distributing agency] over and over, ‘You’re okay, you’re okay. Don’t worry about it. You’re okay, you’re okay.’
“Then, on July 2, out of the clear blue sky, I got about three sentences that said, ‘Sorry, you were not chosen for a grant this year. Have a nice holiday weekend.’”
While Barsby plans to apply for grant funding in the future, she says the sudden change means drastic shifts for the nonprofit, which is grappling with a new reality: for its tutors, who are now effectively out of work, and to the literacy council’s six-county footprint.
“It changes your whole community,” Barsby said. “We’re part of the Department of Economic Development because if you don’t have an educated workforce, you can’t bring in new business, you can’t bring in new industry – you don’t have that workforce.
“Our rural companies have got to continue to invest in and bring industry to us and bring business to us so there are jobs in our area and our young people stay here.”
The Need for Laclede Literacy Council
From its place in a little shopping center, the Laclede Literacy Council opens doors to a better life for Lebanon, the mid-Missouri community that once had a strong manufacturing base. Today, the town of about 15,000 still has some of those jobs, Barsby said, but the fewer options require more education than in the past.
“Most of our factories in this area are the boat factories here in Lebanon,” Barsby said. “They used to be hard-hat jobs. They used to be where you nailed in the carpeting. Now, they’re highly digital, robotized jobs – and to get that job, you have to have a good education.”
When someone seeks help from the center, they take a proficiency exam to see their skill level. They’re then placed with a tutor who works with them several times a week, at no charge. Some individuals come to the center while others are served virtually, including employees of a Missouri sheriff’s department in need of more staff.
“They could not hire enough jailers that had a high school diploma,” Barsby said. “We tutor with those folks about twice a week and give them homework, and they spend four hours a day finishing that up and getting done, so then they can get that job.”
There are young adults who barely missed out on graduating from high school. Grandparents who are doing it for their grandkids. Regardless of why someone ends up at the center, Barsby says the decision to seek help is significant.
“To walk in the door and say, ‘I need help,’ or, ‘I can’t do this’ is a big step,” she said. “It’s hard to jump through that hoop and say, ‘Help me.’”
Tammy Sloan, who sat at the reception desk when I walked into the center, can speak to this reality. After about a year of employment, she was let go from her previous job after her employer realized she didn’t have a high school diploma. She disclosed it on her application, she said, but they didn’t note it at the time.
“I was one of the top three (employees) that month, and I got fired,” she shared. Unhappily, she called the literacy council to inquire about tutoring. “I was like, ‘I’ve got to get (my diploma). I’ve got to get my job back,’ I was scared.”
Those emotions changed as she received tutoring and began volunteering at the desk. And thanks to the tutoring she received, Sloan passed her math HiSET subtest just days before my visit. That past anxiety and annoyance have turned to tears when asked why she likes being part of the center’s team.
“I like helping people. It’s like family,” she said, emotion creeping into her voice. “You get attached to the people that come in, and you root for them every day. Somebody calls and says, ‘I passed the test,’ you can hear the whole office explode.”
Daniel Ford’s story also changed because of the center. On his own early in life, Ford took several trips through the seventh and eighth grades before dropping out of school. Later, he served time in prison before coming to the literacy council as a requirement of his probation.
He’s now a tutor. Working to pass the HiSET. With newfound confidence in hand.
“When I got here, this place showed me something that I’d never seen. It showed compassion,” he said. “I like coming in here every day and seeing these people, and talking to these people. I know a lot of people in the community; they’re like, ‘Wow, you’re here? How’d you get this?’ I’m like, ‘Because I’m smart.’”
Under these funding cuts, both Ford and Sloan are no longer compensated for their work at the center.
“It’s so easy to look the other direction when we look at rural areas and we look at small towns and say, ‘They’ll be fine. They’ll help each other. They have churches that’ll do those things,’” Barsby said. “But there are so many things that need to be done that that’s hard.”
Funding Cuts That Change the Future
Barsby said that the funding was part of a pool of funding allocated by AmeriCorps to the Missouri Department of Economic Development. Applicants apply to AmeriCorps, are vetted, but the funding decisions are ultimately made by the Missouri Community Service Commission, also known as ServMO.
I reached out to ServMO for clarification on the literacy center’s funding changes. Brittany Crabtree, ServMO’s executive director, responded that, “Continuation awards for future years are not guaranteed; they depend upon future appropriations and satisfactory performance.”
Crabtree also wrote: “The applicant received a ‘not selected’ letter and a feedback letter outlining the reasons the application was not selected.”
Barsby shared a copy of the feedback the literacy council received. It claimed the literacy council didn’t adequately explain organizational capability, member experience, and member supervision – things that Barsby said satisfied grant evaluators in the past two years.
In a response to the denial, she wrote that the literacy council met its performance goals by more than 100% each year of the grant, and works directly with 31 non-profits in its community, the public school, and the treatment court without implementation issues.
The bottom line: The funding piece is confusing, but regardless of why the funding was cut, it doesn’t change the fact that this resource, at least temporarily, will look different for a substantial number of people in a rural part of Missouri.
“With this denial, a small community has lost 15 jobs, and the people who are helped by this program will lose out the most,” Barsby wrote in her response to the denial letter. “I understand budget cuts well, but when you cut your budget, do you cut the entire food budget or reduce it slightly from each category?”
What Does the Future Look Like?
Despite this setback, Barsby and the center’s tutors remain committed to their mission.
“I have 99 current, active people right now,” she said. “We’ll be able to serve probably a third of that.
“That’s why my volunteers keep saying, ‘I’ll stay until ‘mine’ graduate. I’ll get the ones I’m working with done so we don’t let those people down.’ I can’t imagine having to tell people, ‘I don’t have a tutor for you anymore.’ I can’t imagine that.”
Some might say it’s not that big of a deal to simply go back to unpaid volunteers. That’s technically an option – but given that this reality is about money, I should point out this comes at a cost. Serving fewer people may mean a lower quality of life for those individuals, fewer employees in local businesses, and fewer opportunities in rural spaces.
And then there’s the reality of second chances.
“I thought I was one of the dumbest people I’d ever met until I got here,” said Ford, the client and tutor. “I started learning and started seeing more people like me that were smart, and they just don’t realize it. I’m really passionate about this.”
“If it wasn’t for places like this here that gave me the opportunity, knowledge, and the wisdom to do what I’m doing, I’d probably still be in prison or off in the gutter somewhere – for real.”
Maybe the center will have a second chance of its own, too. Barsby hasn’t given up on her people, and she’s not giving up on the center.
“We will keep something going,” Barsby said. “I don’t know that it will look like it used to look, but we will be here and we will apply for other grants and see what’s out there.”
Contact Us
Have a question or want to get in touch? We'd love to hear from you. Contact the adult education center today and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Donate
Your contribution can make a big difference in the lives of those we serve. Donate today to help support our mission of providing adult literacy classes and empowering communities.
Capturing Our Mission: A Photo Story of LACLEDE LITERACY COUNCIL
Who We Are
We are a non-profit adult education center actively helping adults reach new educational milestones that promote success throughout their lives. These milestones include everything from learning to read to obtaining a high school equivalency diploma .
For 36 years, the Laclede Literacy Council has assisted the Lebanon, MO, and surrounding communities with their literacy needs. They are currently helping about 60 some people advance their reading skills or work toward attaining their HiSet. (high school equivalency test, formerly the GED) In the past, they have relied on donations, but a few years ago, they joined AmeriCorps. This enabled them to not only accept donations but also focus on obtaining federal grants. These grants allowed them to retain more tutors to reach more people. However, due to recent events, grant funding has been pulled. As it is, now we are no longer an AmeriCorps program. For those of us who are tutoring we are doing so with no guarantee we will have enough money to continue much longer. We only receive a living allowance through grant funding, which is just enough to cover gas, food, and essentials. Suffice it to say, none of them have a massive nest egg to rely on. Because the administration killed our grant we now only have until September 1st to keep our doors open with limited personnel. This means that we will only be serving a very small population. These members put their hearts and souls into their students. They maintain positive outlooks in the face of massive pressure. They are literally putting on happy faces and maintaining positive outlooks with their students and going home with tears in their eyes, not knowing how much longer they will have. The pressure these folks are under to keep those positive attitudes under such incredible uncertainty is superhuman. We all know, trust us, we know how tight funds are right now, but if it is at all possible, any amount you can spare would be a godsend. Even if it’s only $1.00, a hundred of those dollars would enable the Literacy Council to purchase enough materials to help one student earn their HiSet. Please feel free to stop by their office and say hi and see for yourself the lives that have been touched.
Their address is:
539 East Elm
Suite A
Lebanon, MO 65536
417.532.6697
Capturing Our Mission: A Photo Story of LACLEDE LITERACY COUNCIL
Contact Us
Better yet, see us in person!
We love our students, so feel free to visit during normal business hours at the Chalet Village in Lebanon.
Hours
Open today | 09:00 am – 04:00 pm |
