Thriving in the Community: The Creation and Sustainment of a Community-Driven Literacy Center

Cross-sector, interprofessional partnerships and community collaborations offer promise for identifying and addressing the web-like factors that entangle both literacy achievement and negative public health outcomes for vulnerable populations. Literacy centers can be a conduit to promote justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion as they exist to serve all community members. This is especially impactful when partnered with minority and disadvantaged populations. This university-based literacy center (LC) utilizes a community-driven design to attain and sustain their work. This chapter will illustrate the effort made by the LC to establish access, coordinated services, education of stakeholders, and support for students of all ages, and cultural engagement which are foundational to the work being done. Lastly, the chapter will describe the past, present, and future plans for improving community engagement.