ORANGE — As The Literacy Project marks 40 years of helping individuals ages 16 and older gain the knowledge they need to pass their high school equivalency exams (HiSET), students, community members and former teachers filed into the nonprofit’s relatively new Orange location last week for an open house.

Catherine King, an instructor and the North Quabbin site director, said The Literacy Project moved into the South Main Street spot, one of five sites operated by the nonprofit around the Pioneer Valley, during the spring of 2023 and began offering consistent in-person classes that fall, serving 30 to 40 students per year. The official address is 18 South Main St., though the building the nonprofit resides in is marked as 20 South Main St.

“We found this place through word-of-mouth. The people in the businesses around here are so good to us,” King said. “It’s tiny. It’s much smaller than what we’re used to, but it’s cozy and we’re making it work.”

The open house was an opportunity to meet staff and students, and to tour the site. As a special educational offering, actress and University of Massachusetts Amherst Professor Emerita Jarice Hanson performed her one-woman show, “Frances Perkins: A Woman’s Work.” The show details the life of Frances Perkins, a Massachusetts native and Mount Holyoke College graduate who became the first woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet.

Hanson’s performance gave a glimpse into the mind of the advocate for workers’ rights who served as U.S. secretary of labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and helped establish Social Security through legislation signed in 1935.

King, who holds a theater degree, said she had seen Hanson’s show and thought it was a perfect fit for The Literacy Project’s open house.

“Theater and art kind of sneak education up on you,” she said. “You know, they just make it much easier to embrace and to understand and, with her, especially in this day and age, it’s a perfect piece to present to our students and people in the community.”

More information about The Literacy Project is available at literacyproject.org.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.