Hello, my name is Alejandra and I am 38 years old, I am from Mexico city. I have been in the U.S. for almost 16 years. I’m a mom of three girls, my husband and I work full time to afford everything for our family. I’ve worked at McDonald's for 15 years. I'm a crew trainer and it started getting hard to do my job better because my English was not very good.

I have tried to take classes in other places, I even took some in my daughter's school but they were too easy. Then I tried many other places as well but in many they said I didn’t have the requirements needed to take the classes.

The Literacy Center recently published our fiscal year 2015 Annual Report and Newsletter.

Mr. John C. Kennedy, President/CEO of Autocam Medical, is known as a creative and savvy businessman who often works alongside national business leaders and elected officials. Yet there is one other thing that everyone knows about Mr. Kennedy: he has a deeply personal passion for literacy as it relates to equity.

Excerpts from an interview with Alice Apol, the Literacy Center’s longest serving tutor and the recipient of this year’s Marshall Pitler Volunteer of the Year Award

From Fall 2015 Reader

“One learner that I worked with for a long period of time was Margaret Ortega. She still calls me now and we go out for lunch every once in a while. She became very proficient. In fact, when she took the last test, she tested right out of the program! She said, ‘I wish I had known that, I would have answered more questions wrong!”

For tutoring, “I think relationship-building is very important, especially in the beginning. Asking them a little bit about their lives, so they feel comfortable knowing that you’re interested in them as a person. And then each week we have a quick conversation about our weeks.”

Click here to read the full issue.

Nancy VanIngen, Program Assistant at the Literacy Center, celebrated her 25th Anniversary with the organization in May. Katy Payne talked with her about her experience.