Classes enhance fluency, food bank

This is a good idea, these ESL classes take money or donations of food for the local food bank as payment. DP

By Andrea Damewood, The Register-Guard

registerguard.com: For Teodora Regino, learning English means a brighter future for her and her daughter. For Yuliya Drobyshevska, it means a shot at earning an economics degree from the University of Oregon.

Both moved to the United States recently, one from Mexico, the other from Ukraine. Without fluency in English, they and hundreds of their classmates at Downtown Languages probably would wind up working behind the scenes in low-paying service work — the first jobs slashed in a shaky economy, said Kim Knowlen, assistant director of the Eugene nonprofit center dedicated to teaching English and Spanish.

Many already have lost their livelihoods, she said.

But rather than let students give up their studies because they could no longer afford the $25 fee for the five-week class sessions, Downtown Languages directors became creative — eliminating the class fee if students contribute two food items to FOOD for Lane County.

“We’ve been mindful of the fact that FOOD for Lane County is having a difficult time,” Knowlen said of the local food bank, which recently reported its supplies are down more than 1 million pounds compared with this time last year.

“And students may not be able to afford the class right now. Five dollars a week can seem like a luxury with the cost of gas and food and getting laid off.”
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