Before the Montgomery County Literacy Council received a proclamation from Montgomery City Mayor Mike Spirz on Aug. 23 at the Montgomery City Public Library, it got some big news.

Earlier in the day, the organization was awarded a $500 grant from the United Way.

“We are excited about it,” Literacy Council chairperson Laura Burnham said.

The Literacy Council has been a valuable resource in the county, teaching residents how to read and helping them finish their high school education. The efforts helped the organization receive a proclamation from Spirz as part of National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week, which is scheduled for Sept. 18-24.

Diane Malin said she enjoys working for the Literacy Council. She’s a volunteer tutor.

“I do like it,” Malin said. “You can work with different students at different levels and everything. It’s kind of a refresher course for me. I graduated from high school in 1975.”

Shawna McKellar is new to the Literacy Council board. She is training to become a tutor. Her background is in remedial reading skills.

“I was a straight up English teacher for 20 years in the high school level,” McKellar said. “For the last few years I was teaching, I was a literacy specialist. I had a reading specialist certification in Georgia and it was transferred here to Missouri.”

There are six students enrolled in the Literacy Council program and two of them are about to graduate. The organization holds classes from 5 p.m.-8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays in the basement of the Montgomery County Health Department. MCLC is part of a five-county area headquartered at East Central College in Union.

“They (the classes) are individualized,” Burnham said. “So the students take a placement test and then we find out exactly what they need and drill them on that.”

MCLC was formed last year. In December, the group held a quilt raffle at the MCPL to help raise money for scholarships for HiSET (high school equivalency test) students. It also received a $2,000 grant from the Griffin Family Foundation to provide funding for students to take the HiSET if they are unable to secure funding elsewhere.

“(Former Montgomery City Public Library director) Terri Broz started this off before she left,” Burnham said. “She did a good thing. She got us together and got us motivated. We’re taking off. We’re holding on our own with some of the big counties like Franklin and Gasconade.”

Burnham said getting the United Way grant was huge for the organization. It will help people receive scholarships to take the HiSET test.

“It provides us with money so that we can do outreach and it provides us with the ability to reward our students to keep them motivated,” Burham said. “If they reach certain milestones, we can give them a gas card or get them a pizza.”

Burnham said going back to finish a high school education is not an easy task.

“It takes a lot of guts to go back to school,” she said. “I was out of college for 10 years before I went back and got my degree and it was hard being the oldest one in class and losing your study skills and everything. So I know how hard it is to go back to school. For somebody to say, ‘I can’t read’ or ‘I can’t do simple math,’ that’s a big thing. That’s huge. So we’re just here to help them.”