Rainbow Rodeo is YOUR queer country zine — and that means we want to highlight the everyday people who make our queer country lives better. Do you know a person or organization who wants to expand opportunities for others? Drop a line so we can highlight their great work!
For our first Community Spotlight column, I’m excited to highlight Audie Wood’s Life Literacy Education program. Wood and I met on BlueSky — Wood is a voracious country and roots music fan and, like me, works with community college students. So something like a program that engages young people in socio-emotional — and financial — education is near and dear to my heart.
Wood, 37, is a native of Scottsville Kentucky.
“I spent my youth bouncing between Gallatin Tennessee, and Scottsville Kentucky. I was a kid torn between two train tracks. On one side you had me born to 15 and 16-year-old high school kids and raised by grandparents who didn’t attend school past the 8th grade. On the other , I had an uncle who worked at RCA on Music Row in the ’80s and ’90s, and a great uncle who performed his first angioplasty at Vanderbilt.”
This feeling of being between two worlds left Wood feeling insecure about his education — he’s an adjunct sociology professor — and his finances.
“In recent years I’ve realized that my silly insecurities and possession of material goods never kept my friends or relatives from loving me. And suddenly, making smarter financial decisions and choosing between wants and needs became a lot easier to do when creating my personal budgets. It is that personal realization, along with my background as an adjunct Sociology professor, that shaped the creation of Life Literacy Education and our Financial Literacy / Career development curriculum.”
For Wood, Life Literacy Education is not just about teaching the young people in these courses how to balance their books — it’s also about the emotional component. “If you do not address your motivations for spending money or wanting a good or service, then money management only manages the symptoms of the problem,” he explains. “If you really want to encourage people to develop better money management habits, then you must alleviate their insecurities.”
For now, the students in Life Literacy Education join the course as part of a range of options in a pre-trial diversion program. Wood is hoping to raise $50,000 by December 20th in order to purchase student licenses from D2L Brightspace, a vetted online learning platform similar to Blackboard and Google Classroom that is committed to student privacy. (My university system is switching to Brightspace next semester.)
Wood’s background in sociology has taught him that people’s choices are shaped by their environment, and LGBTQ+ are under unique stressors.
With modules that focus on budgeting, mental health, family planning (in terms of finances), career planning, managing credit, resumes and cover letters, and, of course, paying taxes and completing the Free Application for Student Aid for college.
“What I hope to do with my company and my curriculum is to offer students the resources needed to overcome the barriers to success that society puts in their way,” Wood tells us. “We do that with what we teach. But we also do that by connecting them to different non-profits that will offer them the resources that we at LLE only talk about briefly — i.e., mental health care, substance abuse care, and job search assistance.”
You read that correctly — LLE is a for-profit company to ensure that Wood is able to maintain control of his curriculum and eventually license it to other schools. More importantly:
“On principle I do NOT want to avoid paying my fair share of taxes.”
Wood believes that Life Literacy Education will especially help LGBTQIA+ youth.
“At a time when those who identify as women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and any other non-white/non-male/non-Christian humans are being harmed by society…I want to be someone who gives the oppressed the tools to fight back and succeed. That is my purpose as a human in general. That is the purpose of me launching this start-up.”
You can donate to Life Literacy Education here.
Life Literacy Education — Official, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok
This is a well written piece that probably is the best description of my brother I’ve ever read.
Proud.