Frontier College
| Founded | 1899, Ontario, Canada |
|---|---|
| Focus | Education, Literacy |
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Area served
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Canada |
| Website | www |
Frontier College is a Canadian literacy organization established in 1899 by Alfred Fitzpatrick. Founded as the Reading Camp Association, Frontier College aims to improve literacy levels in Canada by providing education to those who seek assistance with their learning and have been overlooked or left behind by the formal educational system. Frontier College runs a myriad of English-language and French-language literacy programs for children, youth and adults in many places across Canada such as community centers, shelters, farms and prisons. It was renamed Frontier College in 1919.
Since 1986, its national headquarters has been located at Gzowski House (named for the celebrated Canadian journalist, the late Peter Gzowski) in Toronto, Ontario.
Frontier College is a national organization, with its head office in Toronto. It has strong, widespread presence in Ontario and Quebec, and also maintains staff that operate regional and provincial offices in other parts of Canada. It also maintains a large volunteer base through its network of Frontier College campus programs located at many universities across Canada, which recruits university students to volunteer as tutors in its programs.
In 1899, the Canadian Shield in northern Ontario was dotted with isolated lumber camps that were cut off from larger society. Alfred Fitzpatrick, a 37-year-old Nova Scotian, who was then a young minister of a Presbyterian Church at Nairn Centre (located west of Sudbury, Ontario), saw that many of the young men - who were largely new immigrants - who worked at these camps were denied the benefits of culture, education and enlightenment. Influenced by the notions of the Social Gospel movement and the teachings of Professor George Grant at his alma mater (Queen's University), Fitzpatrick recognized that these men deserved "not charity but social justice." His prescription was straightforward: after securing the goodwill of the lumber magnates, he would go about from lumber camp to lumber camp, and in each he would erect large tents called "Reading Tents." Each tent was then outfitted with books and stationed by Labourer-Teachers who were university students recruited to volunteer at the tents to teach the workers to read and write. Outside each tent was a sign that said "Reading Tent. All Welcome." Thus, the Reading Tent Association was born. It was later renamed Frontier College.
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