Calling all spellers — teams of three are needed.

This year’s ‘The Bee’ is on May 16 at the Dan Bohan Centre in Riverview.

“It’s a competitive but fun adult spelling bee for Read Moncton, which was formerly known as the Moncton Regional Learning Council,” says Board President Sheila Bennett.

They compete in teams of three spelling words after they are read aloud.

The funds raised help to tutor adults with low literacy in the Greater Moncton area.

“The latest numbers we have for adult literacy, are quite dated. The last international study that was done was in 2012, that showed that almost half of the New Brunswick adults had below average literacy skills,” Bennett adds.

A team of Riverview town councillors made up of Sarah Murphy, Jeremy Thorne, and Heath Johnson have won ‘The Bee’ two years straight.

If you’re good at spelling, that’s always an asset. Teams will have 30 seconds to spell the word together with their group. They provide whiteboards, so no one has to spell the word out loud.

“If you want to support adult literacy and want to have a great time, then that’s all you really need to do,” Bennett says.

Some of the words teams have had difficulty with include broccoli, pterodactyl, simpatico and Valkyries.

“This is our it’s our fifth year even though it started in 2018, but due to the pandemic, we weren’t able to put it on for two years. You can register if you go to our Facebook page, which is just Read Moncton, and there’s an event page with a link where you can purchase tickets,” Bennett stated.