Involvement in Literacy Nassau, by Guest Blogger, Lori Alexy

Do you like to play scrabble?  I do, but I am not very good at it.  I play with my father and brother and their scores are always higher than mine.  My brain freezes when I have those seven tiles in front of me and all I see is “at” “it” “the” “boat”.  Hence why my score is always so much smaller.

I am a board member of Literacy Nassau and one of my first introductions into the organization was their annual unSCRABBLE Challenge.  At first I thought, ok I will go and see what this is about and leave.  I never planned to stay for the entire evening.  Well needless to say, I ended up playing a team that would not let me leave. It was too much fun!

unSCRABBLE is not your typical game of Scrabble.  The challenge consists of two rounds of play.  Each round, all of the teams are given a definition of a mystery word, and letters to be placed in the four corners.  Within seconds the countdown clock is started and you have 15 minutes to play!  Each team empties their bag of Scrabble titles.  The object of the game is get as many points as you can using as many of the tiles as possible.  Teams start to discuss what they think the mystery word is and place their answer in the middle of the board and start to build words around it.  The larger the words and the more special tiles you use, the more points your team will receive.  It is amazing how competitive teams get!

Literacy Nassau is the only no-cost, learner-centered literacy organization in Nassau County providing one-to-one and small group tutoring for adults who seek to improve their basic literacy or English speaking skills. What better way to celebrate the spirit their mission than with words – unSCRABBLE words, that is!

This year, unSCRABBLE will take place on Monday, March 15th at the Chateau Briand in Carle Place from 6pm-10pm.  This year, Literacy Nassau will honor Sharon G. Grosser or Madison National Bank for her years of support to Literacy Nassau.  If you are interested in playing or learning more about Literacy Nassau, please call Literacy Nassau at 516-867-3580.