People often ask why our founder, Demetrius Lancaster, M. Ed, MPA, decided to create a mobile reading clinic. He shares his inspiration in our latest blog below.
“My inspiration came from my own experience with a community reading program offered by a local church when I was young. That support made a lasting impact on me, and I wanted to give back by helping others in a similar way. That program gave me the concrete tools to decode, but also gave me confidence to learn. My journey led me to become a reading teacher, coach, and founder of a school serving low-income communities. Through these roles, I understood the power of tailored support for students and worked closely with families to enhance literacy at home.
As a learning experience designer for the past four years, I’ve collaborated with educators nationwide, gaining insights into how to redesign systems for better learning outcomes for students, especially those who are culturally, linguistically, and neurodiverse.
As a Black man leading community literacy development, I know that the tools we put in place today are critical to how a community sustains itself for years to come. When the pandemic hit and schools closed, I seized the opportunity to work directly with families to address reading inequities. COVID-19 closures underscored the need for innovative, accessible, and effective reading support using technology. What we have developed is a community response to that need. To date, we’ve served over 1,000 students and adults via direct tutoring and reading training.
Joy Education just launched it’s first mobile reading clinic to reach low income students in urban rural areas with extra reading practice with live tutors. What is a mobile reading clinic? Think bookmobile + game truck + virtual reading clinic. Our mobile reading clinics are outreach resources that allow us to partner strategically within a network of local community partners to reach students and families in need of reading support. Our mobile reading clinic extends our reach locally, improves accessibility in digital deserts, and deepens our impact with student and adult readers using the best of AI, transportation technology, and human relationships. They enable us to provide a robust community network of support and prioritize the most critical element to a community reading response: proximity.
Our mobile clinic is a sustainable community driven strategy that will allow us to reach 1000 additional students a week, with just one bus. Often our partners are in digital deserts, without access to devices to facilitate tutoring. Technology shouldn’t be a barrier to quality education. Similar to dental screening mobile clinics and vaccine buses, we will drive to partner organizations who have the community but not the infrastructure to provide tutoring and reading support. Our clinic will combine transportation, technology, AI literacy tools, and dedicated tutors to get as close as we can to the people who need support.”
Donate to our kickstarter to help us reach as many students as possible, and make a difference in their future success! $1 = 1 minutes of reading instruction.