PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS — July 2006 to June 2007

Literacy Volunteers trained 59 new tutors this year.
They joined 74 other tutors to deliver tutoring services throughout the year to more than 400 students. 

“Thomas is a real pleasure to have as a student. 
He never misses a session and is always on time and fully prepared. 
I love my work with Literacy Volunteers. 
Thank you again for all your help.”
—Elizabeth Czap, tutor

The past year has seen a breathtaking increase in the number of ESOL students who are participating in small-group instruction, while the number of students in our one-to-one tutoring program has held steady.  The tutors who choose to work one-to-one with a student, whether Basic Literacy or ESOL, take on an especially challenging task.  We are thrilled when we receive a message like the one above from a tutor.  Most of their students have long histories of academic failure, and many also have emotional and social problems that interfere with making a consistent and long-term commitment to learning.   Progress is usually measured in very small steps.  But the rewards are great because the tutor has the potential to turn someone’s life around.  Elizabeth is one of several tutors now in sight of that goal.

New tutors like Beverly Fries and Sharon Bender and old-timer Johnny Solomon willingly accepted especially demanding assignments this year: a middle-aged man in a halfway house for substance abusers, a young woman on parole, a man seeking to rebuild his life after a jail sentence.  Other new tutors like Judy Paniccia, Nancy Curtiss, and Sylvia Garland took on students struggling to get ahead in the workplace.  Pauline Heath’s long time student has graduated from Literacy Volunteers and is planning to enter Community College in the fall.  Loyola Welsh worked with students attending evening classes at Meriden Adult Education until she recently took on a one-to-one student.  Bob Bailey has taken on a student who is working to improve his life, starting with learning to read and write.  Mike Brodinsky has worked with several students who are enrolled in the Wallingford Adult Education program but are struggling to keep up in their classes. 

Tutors Barbara Parry, Kathy McCarthy, Marion Sachdeva and Janice Samoeil have found it rewarding to work with immigrants who have good foundations in English but have jobs that require a higher level of reading and writing skills. Others, including Sandy Dadlani, Dietrich Burow and Mary Schaefer work with beginning ESOL students who, for one reason or another, need more attention than they would receive in a small group. 

We are especially grateful for our long-term tutors, some of whom – like Manette Adams, Muriel Banquer, Norman Harrower, Joyce Lynch, Joan Swanekamp and Elizabeth O’Neal - have built strong teaching relationships with a single student over a period of time. 

This year three of our one-to-one tutors volunteered time at the Literacy Volunteers booth at the Meriden Daffodil Festival.  Thank you to Loyola Welsh, Pauline Heath, and Mike Brodinsky.

In September, Literacy Volunteers embarked on a new project: Workplace ESOL classes.   The first workplace site began at Thermospas in Wallingford over two years ago, where tutor Roger Blouin continues to work with a loyal and dedicated group.  Literacy Volunteers decided to expand this program and began talking with local businesses to gauge the need for ESOL programs in the workplace.  These conversations led to a partnership with McDonalds in New Haven.  Tutor Malcolm Smith set up a community-based workplace site that targeted McDonald's employees, their families, and the surrounding neighborhood. Though the program only lasted a semester, the concept of workplace ESOL took off.  In October, we opened another site at Universal Components in Branford.  This company had ten employees who spoke very little English and a management team that spoke no Spanish.  The president of the company allowed the employees paid time off work to attend the hour long class.  Tutors Otty Norwood and Shirley Benjamin came in one day a week to help the students with workplace and survival English skills.  In April we began an ESOL group for Servpro employees in North Haven.  Currently six students are registered for the class which is being taught by Bob Martin #2. 

This year also saw the continuation of the ESOL site at Hill Central School.  Mayra Thomas and Stephanie Farber took over this fall and the group became so popular with parents that two new tutors; Andrea Schieckel and Leah Jayasanker were added along with a second class.  Literacy Volunteers has just received a grant from the Community Foundation’s Fund for Women and Girls to provide an enrichment program for the women enrolled in these classes.

Junta and La Casa were once again the largest ESOL sites this year.  Our partnership with Junta and New Haven’s Adult Education provides students with large and small group instruction.  Classes are held at the Fair Haven Middle School four nights a week.  Literacy Volunteers tutors Pete Wilkinson, Carolyn Righter, and Anne Miracle support the Adult Education instructors by giving students more individual attention than they would receive in a large class setting.  Don Desmond continues to oversee the dedicated tutors at La Casa, where many students attend classes to supplement their Adult Education lessons.  The students are divided into groups based on their level and often work with the same tutor for several years.

Interfaith Refugee Ministries in New Haven not only moved to a new building this year but also changed their name to IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services).  Linda Sheehan, Tatyana Brusilovski, and Ruth Sachs are working with students who have come to this country seeking asylum and new lives.

Literacy Volunteers has always had a good relationship with the local libraries.  This year several new partnerships have been created in conjunction with area Adult Education programs.  The Wilson Library opened this fall in the Hill section of New Haven and they were anxious to start an ESOL program right away.  New Haven Adult Education provided a teacher to work with the twelve students who signed up for the class.  Because they had varying levels, Literacy Volunteers tutor Richa Sharma helped the students who were falling behind keep up with the rest of the class.  Phillip Smith, along with a teacher provided by Hamden Adult Education, taught a conversational ESOL class at the Brundage Library in Hamden.  He will continue to teach the class on his own next fall. 

As always, the Meriden Library hosted several ESOL classes over the summer and school year.  Students attending programs that closed for the summer flocked to the library to continue their studies.  At least one class was held Monday through Saturday.  The fall semester brought back many longtime tutors and several new ones.  Brenda Rapuano returned to the Meriden Library line up on Wednesday afternoons to host a conversation group.  New tutors Amy Thurlow and James Amarante joined Stan Furs to work with a multi-level group on Tuesday evenings.  Helene Bush did double duty by tutoring a small ESOL group Tuesday mornings and one-to-one tutoring for a very special client, Richard, who is visually impaired and illiterate.  Eileen Galle worked with a small group on Saturdays until recently, when she handed the group over to new tutor Christine Janis.  This semester, Christine’s students are all native Arabic speakers.

Nancy Hall came back to the Spanish Community Center of Wallingford on Monday evenings, working with parents of children attending the ethnic dance class.  This model was so successful that Nancy didn’t want it to disband when she took a sabbatical to Hawaii this winter, so she trained tutors Nicole Andrews and Bob Martin #2 to take her place.  Joanne Bean will complete the Tutor Training course in June to take Nicole’s place this summer.  Bob Martin #1 tutors a class on Wednesday mornings for anyone who is preparing to take their citizenship test.

When All Saints Episcopal Church in Meriden closed this fall, Immanuel Lutheran Church not only absorbed their parishioners, but our ESOL program as well.  Felix Rivera and Bob Sireno worked hand in hand to provide tutoring to church members.  Bob and Felix have since moved on, but our program will continue with Carolyn Misarski at the helm.

Sacred Heart Church in New Haven serves a small population of students struggling to learn the language.  Neill Berggren and Louise Rogers have an extremely dedicated group, many of whom have attended classes since the site opened three years ago.

The Book Bank in New Haven expanded their program to work with non-English speaking adults in the community.  Tutors Michelle Repass and Marina Spitkovskaya began an ESOL class and recently turned it over to three new tutors;  Karen Mulak, Will Shanks, and Michael Wirtz, who  will complete the Literacy Volunteers training this June.

We have also begun a Basic Literacy/Life Skills class for four clients of the Department of Mental Retardation.  First Congregational Church in Wallingford donated space for the class, which is led by Rosemary Cwirka, a special education paraprofessional in the Cheshire school system.

The 06/07 fiscal year is ending on an exciting note for our Small Groups.  Our programs have remained full and new sites are sprouting up across the region.  While the focus this year was on strengthening existing sites and supporting all tutors, our most recent programs have allowed both new and seasoned tutors to provide a wide range of instruction to the residents of Greater New Haven. As we prepare to enter the new fiscal year, we are beginning a partnership with Beat the Street Community Center in Meriden.  The center has expanded from its original design as a boxing club to a comprehensive community center and is looking to provide educational opportunities for its 18-25 year old members.  Literacy Volunteers plans to have a GED preparatory class there beginning this summer.  We have also recently applied for a United Way Venture Grant to provide two sessions of five “Life Literacy” classes.

Tutors come to us from all walks of life.  Some are retired, many have full-time jobs, and others are college or graduate students.  The binding factor is a desire to help, whether it is one-to-one with a student or with a group of foreign students struggling to learn the language.  Literacy Volunteers thanks each and every one of our tutors for choosing to give their time to improve the lives of so many people in our community.