Tutor With Chatham Literacy and Change a Learner’s Life Today!
Literacy leads to gainful employment, financial and family stability, good health care, and better outcomes for the next generation. Just 1–2 hours a week can open doors to confidence, a better job, stronger families, and brighter futures — right here in Chatham County.
Volunteering as an adult literacy tutor allows you to make a profound difference in someone’s life by helping them develop essential reading, writing, and language skills. Many adults struggle with low literacy levels, which can severely limit their opportunities in education, employment, and daily life. You’ll have an opportunity to work with people who want to earn a high school credential, who need stronger English-language skills to get a job or a promotion, or who simply want to be able to read to their children, fill out an application form, or understand the directions on a bottle of medicine.
At Chatham Literacy, we partner volunteer tutors with adult learners seeking to improve their reading, writing, math, and English skills. Together, we build confidence, unlock opportunity, and strengthen our whole community through supportive, one-on-one learning relationships.
Our tutors are everyday people — neighbors, retirees, professionals, students — who want to make a difference.
You don’t need a teaching background or a foreign language skill to become a tutor, just heart and commitment. We’ll provide the training.
Why Volunteer With Chatham Literacy?
When you tutor with us, you’re helping adults:
- Improve everyday skills like reading a letter, writing a resume, or understanding their child’s homework
- Learn English with confidence
- Pursue job and career goals
- Navigate daily life with greater independence
These transformations happen one person at a time — and you are part of that impact. Watch this video from our learner, Ruth Liborio Castillo and see the effect you can have on someone’s life.
The Impact Our Tutors Have — By the Numbers
We are proud to share that in 2025 we served 344 adult learners – an increase of 63% – through the dedication of our remarkable team of 79 volunteer tutors. Together, they provided 5,934 instructional hours, an 8% growth in learning opportunities. Total volunteer hours were 11,128, valued at $387,143. These numbers represent more than statistics; they reflect lives empowered through knowledge and skills.
How Does Chatham Literacy Help Learners?
Chatham Literacy transforms lives in the following three areas:
1) Traditional Literacy in which we help adults to improve their basic education such as reading, writing, and math; to prepare for the GED or high school diploma; to enroll in a vocational degree; or to ready themselves for training opportunities to advance their work.
2) Civics and Language Literacy in which we teach English language learners how to speak, read and write, and understand English; we help prepare adults for the citizenship exam.
3) Life Skills Literacy in which we prepare adults for expectations and norms in today’s workplace; we do that by offering workforce soft skills training, computer literacy and financial literacy.
What Exactly Do You Teach?
- English for Speakers of Other Languages
- Citizenship Preparation
- GED/High School Equivalency Preparation
- Basic Literacy in reading, writing, and math
- Digital Literacy
- Financial Literacy
- Workforce Soft Skills
How Does It Work?
We’ve designed a simple, supportive process:
- Fill Out An Interest Form — Tell us a few things about yourself
- Training & Orientation — We’ll prepare you to feel confident and supported
- Learner Match — We pair you with a learner (or learners) based on goals and availability
- Start Tutoring — Meet weekly and help someone grow
All tutor onboarding is overseen by a Program Coordinator.
Our tutors enjoy flexible schedules and can choose to volunteer for one-on-one sessions, small-group classes, or both.
You can tutor on your time schedule and at a place that is convenient for you (except your home). We have space available in our office, in libraries, coworking spaces, and even at the businesses where our learners work. You can even tutor online. Don’t have a regular schedule to commit to weekly tutoring? Become a substitute tutor or become a proctor to help us administer reading assessments.
You don’t need a teaching background or foreign-language skills to be a tutor. We provide the training you’ll need to help your students meet their short-term and long-term learning goals.
How Do You Support Your Tutors?
- We offer a monthly tutor support Zoom session from 4-5pm on the first Wednesday of every month: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83071398859?pwd=K1aQOMj6S0FwsS11Wbe0Tocbumb247.1
- We provide shadowing opportunities.
- We have a tutor training manual that will be provided to you for free.
- We will provide you with books and lesson plans to help you get started.
- We send out a weekly tutor check-in email highlighting items that might interest our tutors — classes, news, events, strategies.
- We have a tutor support forum where tutors can discuss topics with each other online.
- You will have access to ProLiteracy’s EdNed (Education Network), which features online courses, lesson plans, and other resources for tutors and learners: https://www.proliteracy.org/education-network/
- We have a membership to ProLiteracy’s StepForward training materials from NewReaders Press that you will have access to: https://www.newreaderspress.com/
- Questions? Read our Tutor FAQ.
- We are always available to you! You can reach our Volunteer Coordinator at 919-742-0578 or leslie@chathamliteracy.org.
Hear From Our Volunteers
“I think when a lot of folks retire, they want to find a way to give back. It seems like there are an endless number of volunteer options. What some people look for in their work, volunteer or otherwise is freedom to do their job, the opportunity to make meaningful connections with people, doing work that makes a difference, and doing a job where they can have a little fun! Being an ESOL tutor checks all those boxes for me. I only hope my students get half as much out of this as I do.”
TUTOR
Gill Keelan
“Chatham Literacy changes people’s lives in transformative ways: going to the doctor as a adult without having to take my 10 year old daughter to translate; able to receive messages from my children’s schools; learning how to use a computer. My favorite quote came from a student in my citizenship prep class who (after she passed the test and was an American citizen) said, “I was an orphan, and now I’ve been adopted!” Yes CL changes lives, and I get to be a part of that!”
tutoR
Joanne Caye
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to volunteer for Chatham Literacy because tutoring adult learners is the most rewarding volunteer experience I’ve ever had. The students are dedicated, attentive, and eager to learn English. They inspire me.”
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Mary Hood Hart
How Do I Get Started?
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