YELL: A POSITIVE REPUTATION

If you're reading this article, odds are you rolled down your car window and forked over $2 to a volunteer in the 1997 YELL campaign earlier this morning.

Good for you.

YELL is an acronym for Youth Education Literacy and Learning, a joint project to promote literacy sponsored by the Southeast Missourian and Area Wide United Way. This is the seventh year for the project.

Each year since 1991, YELL volunteers have taken special newspaper editions to street corners in Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Scott City and hawked them in the old newsboy style. Proceeds from YELL are split between the Newspapers In Education program sponsored by the Southeast Missourian and literacy grants funded through the United Way. Each community benefits from the street sales in their city.

Ten thousand YELL papers have been printed and sold each year for the past four years. The special newspaper features outstanding literacy projects in the area and includes short opinion pieces by members of the community.

This year, a new feature has been added. Each reporter at the Southeast Missourian wrote a special piece explaining what they like to read. The reporters came up with some surprising answers, including everything from Dr. Seuss to Dear Abby.

"It's not a matter of what I like to read as much as it is what I have time to read," laughed community news editor Peggy Scott, the Dr. Seuss fan. "I do read a lot, but they're all short little books with lots of pictures and rhyming words."

Nancy Jernigan, United Way executive director, said YELL is successful because it has short-term commitment and long-term results. Usually, she said, volunteers pick up their papers at 5:30 a.m. and most of them are sold out by 9 a.m. That short, three-hour commitment earns about $20,000 for literacy projects in local communities for the rest of the year, she said.

"The people that keep coming back really have fun," Jernigan said. "A lot of times they'll see folks that they know and they just really enjoy it. It's so different from the things they usually do."

Cape Girardeau campaign chairwoman Sandi Hendricks agreed. She volunteered on street corners for several years before crossing over to the organizational side of the campaign this year. YELL has become extremely well-organized over the years, she said. The coordinator's job is basically to make contacts in the community and remind people it's time to sell papers again.

"The project already has such a positive reputation with the community that you don't have to beg the community to help," Hendricks said. "You can just watch them as you're driving down the street and tell that they're enjoying themselves. Not only are they making an important contribution to education and literacy, they're having a good time while they do it."

Jernigan said there are also other good reasons for volunteers to participate in YELL day. The weather's always nice, she said, and the sunrises are always beautiful.

"It's really fun and it's really exciting and it never rains on YELL day," she said. "I was perched on the corner of Lexington and Perryville last year and I got to see the sunrise. It's a stretch, but as a YELL volunteer you even get to appreciate the wonders of the world.