VALUEUSA :: Susan D. Green Memorial Award

VALUEUSA

A Special Thank You - Susan D. Green Memorial Award

VALUEUSA: Newsletter 11.2018 

It’s that time of year again where we go around the table and take turns expressing what we are grateful for!

Here at VAULEUSA, we would like to give a special thanks to several amazing women who have all had their spot on the stage to receive the renown Susan D. Green Memorial Award!

Georgia Rogers

We would like to recognize and congratulate Georgia Rogers on the release of her new book, Georgia Loves Learning, that is now available for purchase on Amazon!

Georgia won the Susan D. Green Memorial Award in 2011, and now, through her book, we have the full story and history of this influential woman of adult education advocacy. In the pages of Georgia Loves Learning, you will read how Georgia’s love of education empowered her to reach educational pursuits that she has held since childhood. One of her most impactful contributions was her founding of her own adult education school that thrived for 15 years!

Robin Karov

It is with bittersweet emotion that we inform you of the passing of someone very special to us here at VAULEUSA, Robin Karov. Robin was a Susan D. Green Memorial Award winner and a dedicated advocate for adult literacy. In Vermont, she worked at the Brandon Training School, Vermont Adult Learning (VAL), and WomenSafe, where she helped to strengthen programs and people alike.

Patsy Golden

Finally, we would like to take a moment to shine the spotlight on Patsy Golden, the original winner of the Susan D. Memorial Award and an outstanding community activist. Patsy has served on the board here at VALUEUSA helping adult learners reach goals that they never thought possible.

Susan D. Memorial Award 2019

Soon we will be accepting nominations for our next Susan D. Memorial Award recipient for 2019! If there is anyone who you think should be nominated, you are welcome to submit their information to our website after the New Year.  Subscribe

Literacy – Spanning the US :: Lima OH :: Cleveland OH :: Prince Edward Co VA

Literacy: Spanning the U.S.     

Northwest Ohio

Literacy Council

Northwest Ohio Literacy Council trains new tutors

HomeTown Stations: 11.07.2018 by Katie Honigford

New volunteer tutors for the Northwest Ohio Literacy Council received training Wednesday afternoon to start helping adults in the area.

"Within our community, we have about 13,000 adults that are functionally illiterate that read at about a third grade level or below. . .   WATCH 00:47

@seedsofliteracy

Finding the FUN: Why Ed Tutors

Seeds of Literacy: 11.04.2018

~ From the Law to Leadership: Finding the fun in learning ~

Ed Round is a tall man with a deep voice. He has an authoritative presence and is fiercely passionate about what he does.

These traits served him well in his legal career of more than thirty years. Half of that time he worked for the federal government in the anti-trust division of the U.S. Justice Department. The other half of his career was spent as an administrative law judge, hearing disability cases on appeal.

When he retired in January 2015, he saw an ad in the church bulletin about Seeds of Literacy. “I’ve always like teaching people stuff…maybe that would be fun!” he said to himself at the time. The rest is history.

The very traits that make Ed someone most people wouldn’t want to go up against in court, are the same ones that make him a student favorite in the Seeds classroom. They trust him.

Ed finds himself tutoring Math the most, but if it were up to him, he’d tutor Social Studies. Why? Because he believes it is harder than Math. “There’s only one right answer in Math. Social Studies is more open for discussion and comprehension. I’ve had some college-level discussions with Seeds students about Social Studies!”  READ MORE >>

Charlotte Adult

Learning Center

Prince Edward County Needs a Literacy Program

Southside Messenger: 11.08.2018 – Letter To The Editor

I want to restart basic literacy programming (Adult Basic Education (ABE), English as a Second Language (ESOL), and Family Literacy efforts spearheaded by the Tri-County Life Learners. I have spoken with various community members who share my interest in restarting these programs, and am interested in connecting with others who share my desire to make Prince Edward County a literacy hub that serves the needs of our community.

The Tri-County Life Learners served Cumberland, Prince Edward and Buckingham counties and was a part of the Southside Literacy Partners, coordinated by the Charlotte Adult learning Center. No other local group offers organized efforts to promote basic literacy, and English as a Second Language instruction.  READ MORE  >>

ProLiteracy Top Ten Literacy Heroes

@ProLiteracy 

ProLiteracy Top Ten Literacy Heroes

ProLiteracy: Nov 2018

The votes are in!

Congratulations to the first ever ProLiteracy Heroes:

First Place

Seeds of Literacy in Cleveland, Ohio

Provides FREE basic education and GED®, TASC®, and HiSET® preparation

to adults in the Cleveland area.

Students, volunteers, and donors all work to break a root cause of poverty: illiteracy.

Second Place

Vision Literacy in Santa Clara County, California

a premium provider of comprehensive adult and family literacy education services in Santa Clara County. By partnering with local donors, volunteers, and organizations, our nationally recognized and accredited program empowers adult learners to reach their personal goals, build confidence, and develop a successful vision for their future.

For more than 30 years, Vision Literacy has partnered with donors, volunteers, and organizations to raise awareness and funds to provide necessary services to adults with low literacy skills.

Third Place

Tarrant Literacy Coalition in Fort Worth, Texas

empowers adult learners and those who teach them with high quality literacy services and resources so businesses can hire, people can work and families can thrive

The ProLiteracy Hero Contest recognizes and awards the heroes in the adult basic education field.

The stories submitted by contestants representing organizations and individuals across the world are truly epic tales of empowerment and they all deserve to be recognized!  READ MORE >>

26 People Told Us How Public Libraries Make Their Lives Better via BuzzFeed

26 People Told Us How Public Libraries Make Their Lives Better

View on Instagram

"It made me love learning, which is the greatest gift I possibly could have received."

BuzzFeed: 11.13.2018 by Arianna Rebolini

Recently, we asked the BuzzFeed Community how their local libraries have improved their lives. Here are some of the most heartwarming responses.

1. "There wasn't this pressure to socialize or talk to anyone there."

"I moved to the town I currently live in when I was 10. Making friends was never easy for me — I have severe social anxiety, and a birth defect where one of the symptoms is alopecia and I only became more aware of it after I moved — but I found a lot of comfort in the town's library.

2. "The library provides so many resources for me to practice a new language."

"I’m learning a new language and the library provides so many resources for me to practice the language, which otherwise would have been really expensive.

3. "Books helped me feel a little less lonely."

"I started homeschooling in the seventh grade. Homeschoolers get a bad rep for being socially awkward and inept, but I am actually a very extroverted person so it was tough to be homeschooled.

4. "It's a simple but meaningful way for me to honor my late father's memory."

"I inherited my father’s love of reading and as soon as I could write my name, I signed up for my own library card. We would take weekly trips to our library and pick out a few books to read together, and it was easily one of the best parts of my childhood.

5. "[The school librarians] let me take out more books than the actual limit."

"I love befriending the librarians at school, because then they will let me take out more books than the actual limit of books — like in sixth grade, I was able to check out five books at a time.  READ MORE >>

Literacy – Spanning the US :: Los Angeles Co CA :: Longview WA :: Rio Rancho NM :: San Angelo TX

Literacy: Spanning the U.S.     

@LACountyLibrary

Books and buzzes foster love of reading

Vimeo: 11.03.2018 by Los Angeles County Newsroom

Getting a haircut offers an opportunity for boys to improve their reading skills, thanks to a partnership between the County Library and Barbershop Books. Whether a crew cut, crop, or fade, quality reading time never looked so good.  WATCH 02:24

Longview Library

New U.S. citizen celebrates by voting in Washington state

KGW 8: 11.05.2018

Longview, Washington resident Maria de Los Angeles Cordova is from Mexico. About a year and a half ago, she started studying English through a program at the Longview Library called "Project Read." It helps people with literacy, earning their GED. WATCH 00:59

@ReadWestInc

Readwest Helping Adults Transform Their Lives

KRQE: 11.05.2018 by Logan Rader

Through literacy, ReadWest helps adults transform their lives by improving their ability to find work, participate in their child’s education and become effective members of the community.

ReadWest is one of the largest community-based Adult Literacy Programs in New Mexico providing one-to-one tutoring by trained volunteers at no cost to the learner.

Readwest serves adults in Sandoval and Bernalillo Counties by teaching them to read, write and speak English.  WATCH

ALC Concho Valley

San Angelo local gains from English classes offered by Adult Literacy Council

Go San Angelo: 11.05.2018 by Yfat Yossifor

Jesus Reyes Orozco raised his hands into the air and praised God. He was thankful for his opportunities.

After 17 years in the county, he was finally learning English.

Slowly, carefully, Orozco spoke in English, detailing a long list of jobs and moves across states until he made his way San Angelo and found the Adult Literacy Council of the Concho Valley.

In the past year, he has spent two hours in the mornings Monday-Thursday with instructors at the center.

Orozco was born in Mexico and lived in Mexico City, where he has a successful career as a bank executive for more than 25 years. But that all changed when the bank was sold and he was let go because of his age, he said.

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“Learning English is opening opportunities for me. I’m doing this for my life and for my family,” he said. “I want to learn more, and one day I’ll open my own business.”

The Adult Literacy Council of the Concho Valley offers free English classes, U.S. citizenship classes, high school equivalence preparation, computer skills, basic literacy, financial literacy and Bible study.  READ MORE>>

The Oxford Word of the Year 2018 is… Toxic

@OxfordWords

The Oxford Word of the Year 2018 is… toxic.

Oxford Dictionaries: 11.15.2018

The adjective toxic is defined as ‘poisonous’ and first appeared in English in the mid-seventeenth century from the medieval Latin toxicus, meaning ‘poisoned’ or ‘imbued with poison’.

But the word’s deadly history doesn’t start there. The medieval Latin term was in turn borrowed from the Latin toxicum, meaning ‘poison’, which has its origins in the Greek toxikon pharmakon – lethal poison used by the ancient Greeks for smearing on the points of their arrows. Interestingly, it is not pharmakon, the word for poison, that made the leap into Latin here, but toxikon, which comes from the Greek word for ‘bow’, toxon.

The Oxford Word of the Year is a word or expression that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the passing year, and have lasting potential as a term of cultural significance.

In 2018, toxic added many strings to its poisoned bow becoming an intoxicating descriptor for the year’s most talked about topics. It is the sheer scope of its application, as found by our research, that made toxic the stand-out choice for the Word of the Year title.

Our data shows that, along with a 45% rise in the number of times it has been looked up on oxforddictionaries.com, over the last year the word toxic has been used in an array of contexts, both in its literal and more metaphorical senses.

Drawn from our corpus, the top 10 toxic collocates for the year – that is, words habitually used alongside toxic – are indicative of this.

Word of the Year 2018 shortlist.

Big Dick Energy (BDE)

Cakeism

Gammon

Gaslighting verb

Incel noun

Orbiting

Overtourism

Techlash

READ MORE >>

Picture Book Month :: Reasons To Read Picture Books To Students Of All Ages via Literacy for Texas

@LiteracyForTX

5 Reasons To Read Picture Books To Students Of All Ages

Literacy for Texas: 11.12.2018

Develops Critical Thinkers

Increases Reading Efficiency

Introduces The Arts

Allows For Bonding Time

Makes Reading Fun

This month we are excited to bring you a newsletter dedicated to picture books and why they are important. Check it out: http://ow.ly/GrrF30mtnbA