YELL PAPERS TO GO ON SALE TUESDAY

Since YELL for newspapers was conceived in 1991, Schnucks and manager Dennis Marchi have supported the effort to improve literacy in the community by selling YELL newspapers.

That support again was exhibited Saturday when Marchi, along with the other 160 employees of Schnucks in Cape Girardeau, wore T-shirts touting support for the store and the fifth year of YELL, which stands for Youth, Education, Literacy and Learning.

"This is the first year I bought the T-shirts for this," said Marchi, an original coordinator of the program. "We wanted to wear them and increase awareness before the event. We'll wear the T-shirts again Tuesday when we sell the newspapers."

Employees from the deli counter to the videocassette rental department were wearing their YELL T-shirts Saturday. As customers shopped in the store and went through the checkout line, many of them noticed the T-shirts, reminding them of the upcoming sale of YELL newspapers.

Marchi said the YELL program has been a rewarding project for the people who have devoted time and money. As someone who has interviewed prospective employees, he said watching people who are unable to fill out a job application because they can't read is frustrating.

"This is something we can do to help youths and adults," Marchi said, "and the program gets bigger and bigger every year."

YELL volunteers will hit the street corners for a few hours Tuesday to begin hawking the special newspapers at 6 a.m. in Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Scott City. The cost to support YELL is $2.