One Filipino boy treated each copy of The Westcoast Reader as precious cargo. He carried it home flat, unwilling to fold it for fear of damaging the paper, knowing that his mother and father would read it after work during the time they had set aside to learn English.

The newspaper belonged to the whole family, and there is something lovely in the seriousness of that child safeguarding its journey home.

Natasha Loh discovered his story while reading old letters to the editor. As Office Administrator at Decoda Literacy Solutions and Editorial Assistant for The Westcoast Reader, she helps find stories for a publication she remembers fondly from her own childhood.

She used it at school and now wonders about the learners who may remember today’s issues years from now, just as she does.

Across British Columbia, Decoda works with 101 Literacy Outreach Coordinators and supports 400 community literacy programs. Newcomers learn English, displaced workers prepare for a changing economy, parents support their children’s education, and adults develop the digital and practical skills required to participate in daily life. The numbers convey the reach of this work, while those old letters reveal what it can mean within a family.

Some young readers wrote that The Westcoast Reader made them want to become journalists so they could tell stories of their own.

Another student, who returned to Korea every summer, asked whether she could take her copies with her. Her teacher requested another ten issues so the student would have enough to bring home. When she returned, she said her sister had carefully arranged the newspapers in a stack on her dresser.

In that home, they had become “Treasures from Canada.”

Natasha imagines meeting a learner years from now and mentioning The Westcoast Reader. She hopes that person might smile in recognition and remember learning from it, enjoying its stories or carrying an issue home.

She describes her contribution as a “trickle-down effect” because much of what she does passes through other hands before reaching the person it will help. She may prepare a mailing, find a story, process a donation, suggest a theme or support an issue through production, never knowing where that work will eventually come to rest.

Months later, the result may appear in a classroom, a library or a family home she will never see.

Although a newspaper is often read and discarded, these issues remained in existence long past the day of publication. They travelled carefully to waiting parents, crossed an ocean, became keepsakes on a dresser and stirred a child’s ambition to become a journalist.

That is the possibility Natasha works towards, knowing that a story found today may travel farther than anyone in the office will ever know.

Through Decoda Literacy Solutions, The Westcoast Reader continues its journey from the editorial desk into classrooms, libraries and homes across British Columbia, placing clear, engaging Canadian stories in the hands of learners. A donation to Decoda supports the programs, practitioners and resources that help those readers strengthen their skills and discover where words can take them.

Your Gift. Their Next Chapter.

Donate to Decoda Literacy Solutions and help the next story find its reader.