Family literacy programmes operate on the periphery of American education and often employ a deficit orientation toward minoritized families; still, parents view these programmes as language-learning resources. This ethnographic study explores the experiences of Latina mothers enrolled in a school-based family literacy programme in Nebraska to understand what sustained their involvement. Utilising Brandt's (2001. "Literacy in American Lives." Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press) literacy sponsorship framework, it suggests that the programme personnel somewhat shared the mothers' literacy sponsorship and, consequently, provided a learning experience that supported participants in meeting their goals. Observation and interview data showed two partially agreed upon sponsors of literacy: enriched livelihoods and spending time with children. Despite variations in other perspectives and goals, each had similar continuing stakes in participating in the programme. This agreement illuminated how the programme was responsive to mothers' goals, despite its deficit lens, and suggests a vantage point for developing more culturally congruent family literacy programmes.