YELL SPONSORS PROVIDE CLASSROOM PAPERS

For a decade, true believers in literacy for all children and adults stood on Cape Girardeau street corners for one day each September hawking special copies of the Southeast Missourian. Supporters gave generously from their car windows, sometimes just a few dollars, sometimes large checks.

The program was the annual YELL edition of the Southeast Missourian. YELL stands for Youth, Education, Literacy, Learning. And the money from the YELL edition over the past decade has helped underwrite the Newspapers in Education program, which puts copies of the newspaper into the hands of hundreds of area students.

But support for the traditional YELL Day street sales has waned in recent years. There have been complaints about the intrusion of volunteer newspaper hawkers standing at street corners.

So now the YELL Foundation, which administers the program, has decided the NIE papers are to be funded through classroom sponsorships. So far, a YELL Foundation sales representative has sold 60 sponsorships at $275 each. At least 100 sponsorships are needed to keep NIE newspapers, which are subsidized 50 percent by the Southeast Missourian, at existing levels. More sponsorships would mean more teachers would have the opportunity to use newspapers as a tool.

Thank you to those 60 sponsors who have agreed to participate. The cost is a small investment in the community's literacy future. Surely others will do the same.