Marshall Economic Development Corp. donates $12K to Panola College literacy program

Published 11:02 pm Thursday, July 24, 2025

The Marshall Economic Development Corp. recently donated $12,000 to Panola College’s Adult Education Literacy Grant to help fund materials.

Panola College has been providing workplace literacy training to businesses in the area for the past 25 years. The college brings instructors to workplaces to offer English as a second language (ESL) classes for non-English speakers.

The college is getting ready to start classes at Republic Elite Manufacturing in Marshall with the help of the donation.

Laura Wood, Marshall College Center director, said the donation will be used to purchase Chromebooks and a mobile cart for students.

She added that bringing the literacy classes to businesses that need them is pivotal for clear communication and helps workers to immerse themselves in the community.

“There’s more people in larger plants that typically English is not their first language, and it helps with community, it helps them in their workplace, helps them with safety. And hopefully, it trickles down and helps with family and their kids and their school where they can go to meetings and understand what’s going on with the teachers,” Wood said.

Panola College’s Marshall College Center has provided ESL classes to other businesses including Lewis Engineering Co., Prysmian Group and Happy Nails Salon.

The classes allow workers whose native language is not English to learn it at no charge. Instructors hired by Panola College visit the workplaces and teach the students there.

“We try to work around their shift, work to either meet them before or after they get off their shift and holding them there helps them go from work to the class and then go home,” Wood said.

Michelle Braden, who has taught ESL classes, describes her experience as an exchange of knowledge.

“I always find it interesting to talk to different people who have a different world experience in different cultures, things like that. They teach us as much as we teach them because they’re teaching us different aspects of their culture,” she said.