YELL RAISES ALMOST $35,000

Headlights shining through Tuesday's early morning fog spotlighted volunteers on street corners hawking YELL newspapers.

"The community was covered," said Nancy Jernigan, executive director of the Area Wide United Way. "Everywhere I went people were having fun. That's the reason we get them to come back year after year at 6 in the morning."

YELL is an acronym for Youth Education Literacy and Learning. It is a joint project of the Southeast Missourian and Area Wide United Way. It was the seventh year for the project.

Volunteers sold nearly all the 10,000 copies of a special edition of the Southeast Missourian in three hours. Funds go to literacy efforts in the community.

The project raised $34,634, approximately $4,000 short of last year's amount. Street sales of newspapers topped last year's sales but advertising sales came up about $4,000 short of last year.

A total of $18,300 from street sales will be split between the Newspapers In Education program sponsored by the Southeast Missourian and literacy grants funded through the United Way.

The other $16,334 raised through advertising sales goes to the Newspapers In Education program. Last year's ad sales were $20,000.

Funding from YELL provides newspapers at no cost to classroom teachers in the area through Newspapers In Education. Teachers use the Southeast Missourian to teach current events, history, English, math, science and a multitude of other topics.

"We are going to have to make up that $4,000 somehow," said Kim McDowell, YELL coordinator for the newspaper. Otherwise, the program will have to end early this school year, or next year some schools might not be able to participate.

"Neither of those are good options at our end," McDowell said. "We would like to continue to support all our teachers."

Literacy grants will remain about the same as last year since that money comes from street sales.

Improving literacy is vital to a community's growth, McDowell said. Seventy percent of prisoners can't read. "People who can't read, can't hold jobs."

Jernigan said, "If we can just make every effort to help every person read and write, this will take care of a lot of other problems."

McDowell agreed: "Literacy is the foundation where change is going to begin."

Contributions may be made to YELL by contacting McDowell at 335-6611. Information about literacy grant applications may be obtained by contacting the United Way at 334-9634.