United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley will use a $539,847 grant from AmeriCorps to enable the continuation of the organization’s AmeriCorps program, which supports multilingual speakers in Lynn, Salem, and Gloucester.
The program sends United Way AmeriCorps fellows to over 15 sites in the three cities, where they provide academic and social support to people learning multiple languages. The four key components are comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, and social emotional skill development.
“Sixty-four percent of public-school students in Lynn speak a first language other than English, while in Salem, 33 percent of students have a first language other than English. In Gloucester, 12 percent of students speak a first language other than English,” the organization said in a statement.
United Way is a “leading civic engagement organization dedicated to responding to our region’s most pressing issues like housing stability, economic mobility, healthy child development and educational success.”
Dorothy Irrera can be reached at [email protected].
