Services provided by the Excellence in Literacy Foundation
The Excellence in Literacy Foundation Donations Gift Catalogue
Create a Community – Open Doors
Support an Entire ELF Literacy Program for a year: $2000
Your generous gift will fund a Canadian literacy program to teach reading, writing and “life skills” to up to 100 children for a year. Your spirit of giving will be present in a low-income, new Canadian, aboriginal or special needs community and will provide:
- a welcoming place for children to gather in a positive, supportive learning environment
- the priceless gifts of literacy skills and the precious confidence that those skills build
- caring, enthusiastic, well-trained volunteers who specialize in working with youth -who need extra support to succeed
- work experience, community connection and support to volunteers who often go on to be teachers, social workers and psychologists
- originally created, inclusive ELF workbooks, full of engaging stories and activities to motivate youth to learn about Canadian culture and how to become role models in our diverse society
Months of Hope
Support an Entire ELF Literacy Program for a Term - $700
Statistics Canada defines literacy as the ability to understand and use printed information in daily activities. Now imagine being a seven-year-old child growing up in a disadvantaged community in Canada. Your parents are trying hard to make ends meet but are struggling with their low literacy skills in every aspect of their daily lives. Who can you turn to for help with your reading homework, your math problems or to read your favourite book? Your generous support provides four months of literacy classes to teach literacy and life skills to 5-18 year old students.
- Your contribution helps ESL students arriving in our classrooms unable to speak a word of English or French, to read and write at a first grade level, and this often happens after one term.
- Your support gives special education students the confidence to improve at twice the rate of children who do not have the support of ELF programs.
- Your gift ensures the continuity of a program that makes students positive about learning so they do not drop out of school.
- Your commitment to this program guarantees that another Canadian community can offer the hope of literacy support for a four-month term to children who are in need.
Supplying the Essentials
Class supplies for a full program for a year - $200
Student attention spans are sometimes in short supply! Unfortunately, so are paper, pencils, pens, erasers, pencil, sharpeners and dictionaries…the basic tools needed for reading and writing, teaching and sharing knowledge.
Your gift goes directly to the classroom to provide essential materials for a full year of programming. From pencils and rulers to guest speakers and reference books, your contribution will equip tutor/mentors with the tools they need to help children learn to read, write and be confident about learning.
Sponsoring a class supplies kit for a program for one year is only $200.00. There’s the bell…please donate now!
Mentoring Wisdom
Train a volunteer literacy tutor-mentor - $50
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."
Mahatma Gandhi
ELF programs strive to bring the gift of literacy through free mentoring programs to high-need children and youth. Without the help of our talented, dedicated volunteer tutors and mentors across Canada, we could never deliver the gift of literacy—and hope—to these wonderful children and youth. Perhaps you would like to volunteer but cannot, then why not donate $50 toward the cost of training one literacy volunteer tutor-mentor to help defray our training costs? As an added bonus, once trained, our volunteers become literacy advocates in their communities, workplaces and public institutions reminding those around them that literacy should not be taken for granted, and that more work must be done!
A Working Gift that Works Wonders –
Literacy Workbooks for a student for a year - $30
Being Canadian-based, our workbooks focus on Canadian-relevant themes encouraging students to learn more about First Nations and multi-cultural issues, as well as our parliamentary system and civic responsibilities in Canada. Many of our students are of colour, new Canadian, from financially disadvantaged families, from single parent homes and many face a number of physical and developmental challenges. We have strived to make our workbooks as inclusive as possible to all of our students. Our workbooks teach our students how to become role models in our diverse society. ELF programs across Canada receive these materials at no cost and consistently give the workbooks rave reviews: "We truly enjoy your literacy materials. They are exceptionally well done and so very helpful to us. We look forward to using more of the materials provided as there is a greater need this year for literacy than there has been in the past. I know the children have enjoyed the different activities and can never get enough of the sheets we copy for them. There are no words to describe the difference your program has made in a child’s life. Your program is the reason so many children leave our class with a smile on their face and higher self-esteem, knowing that there is nothing the world can throw their way that they cannot overcome." West Central Community Resource Centre, Calgary
Building a Case - From your hand to theirs
A full pencil case - $10.00
"I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.."
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Remember the joy of opening a freshly-stocked pencil case in your first class at the beginning of a new school year in September? Each sharpened, pointy pencil brought new hopes for achievement and success for the year that lay ahead. We try hard to help our kids succeed at school and sustain that “September” enthusiasm for learning. In doing this, we go through oodles of pencils in our ELF programs because we teach our students how to print, write in cursive writing, capture their thoughts in full sentences, proofread and change and improve upon their own work. And what tool is more effective at helping you hone your thoughts on paper, than a pencil with a small eraser on the end?
Since we use, and sharpen, so many pencils, we need lots of pencil cases for our tutors and their students! To help cover the cost of a full pencil case for one of our ELF programs, please donate $10.00.
How to make a donation for an item from our Gift Catalogue
Please click here to go to our Donations Gift Catalogue:
Once you decide on an item that you would like to donate please follow the following instructions:
Please click on the Canada Helps link at the bottom of this page
When on the Canada Helps website, please follow these steps:
Step 1 – Please enter the donation amount related to your gift(s).
Step 2 – Please select the desired frequency of your donation.
Step 3 – Under fund/designation you will find a drop down menu. Please select the appropriate gift item. We apologize for the possible inconvenience, but for multiple donations of different gift items, separate donations will have to be submitted.
Step 4 – If you wish your gift recipients to receive an e-card, notifying them of your gift, please select that option.
If you would prefer that the ELF send your gift recipient a card by standard mail, please select that option and enter the details as indicated.
Thank you for your generous support!
We have had the pleasure of working with dozens of outstanding community partners across Canada. We are proud to have been able to support them in developing their excellent programs.
Please click here to read some testimonials from community partners across Canada.