The Literacy Center of West Michigan is pleased to publish Learner Spark, Issue No. 3, now available as a free PDF download. Learner Spark is a learner-written magazine that shares original stories from adult learners across Literacy Center programs. The writing reflects learners’ lived experiences and is published in their own words as part of ongoing literacy development.
When Alexandra arrived in West Michigan from Haiti, she carried with her something powerful: a commitment to caring for others.
When volunteer coach McKenna began meeting with Hong virtually in June 2024, it quickly became clear that Hong’s love for learning, and her love for her family, go hand in hand. A mother of three, Hong often has her children nearby during their virtual coaching sessions. Their cheerful interruptions are always welcome, until her coach gently reminds them, “Okay, time for mom to study English!”
Tabo is a participant in the MI Impact program at the Literacy Center, a contextualized English and healthcare career training program in partnership with Corewell Health.
At the Literacy Center of West Michigan, we help adults build the literacy and language skills they need to reach their goals. The Learner Spark is one way we celebrate that growth—it's our in-house magazine written by learners, for learners. Each story highlights the goals, challenges, and achievements of our learners in their own words. Read Olesya’s story here:
A groundbreaking partnership is redefining workforce development in West Michigan — and local media is taking notice. WZZM-13 recently featured the MI Impact program, an innovative collaboration led by the Literacy Center of West Michigan with Corewell Health and supported through the statewide MI Impact grant initiative. The segment highlighted how the program connects English-learning and immigrant adults to high-demand healthcare careers through a model that combines paid employment, English instruction, and credentialed training — helping to fill critical staffing gaps while opening doors to economic mobility.
When Jorge arrived from Cuba, he had a degree in electrical engineering but limited English. After taking Workplace English classes through his company, he advanced from the foundry floor to the R&D lab—eventually becoming Lab Manager.
We remember Ed for his quiet determination and deep commitment to literacy. Even in the face of serious illness, he continued to show up—ready to grow, connect, and learn.
"Hello. My name is Iryna. I’m from Ukraine. I lived in a big industrial city of Zaporizhzhia. I had a stable and peaceful life with my family. There are four of us. I have two kids. My daughter is 13 years-old and son is 11 years-old. I worked as a cosmetologist at the salon. I loved my job.
One day, the war comes into my country. It was the worsen day in my life. Thousands of lives were destroyed. To protect my kids and my parents I decided to move to the USA. My husband stays in Ukraine. My sister lives in Grand Rapids. That’s why we came here.
Leaving home is never easy. Imagine making the difficult decision to leave behind everything that is familiar—people, places, culture, and language—to start fresh someplace new. This was the decision facing Yaina Mitchell in 2009. While she didn’t want to leave her home in the Dominican Republic, she felt that the United States would give her access to more opportunities and her young children a chance at a better life.
Fung Tial and her tutor Sarabeth Carr have been working together since September 2019. Her tutor encouraged her to write an essay to practice her English, and so she chose to write about an important piece of culture from her home country (Burma).
Kee Hnin, a learner in the Literacy Center’s tutoring program, came to the United States with her family just before the pandemic began. Kee and her husband have three children. It was through a Kent County Head Start home visitor that Kee first learned about the Literacy Center’s tutoring program.
It is a well-known fact that construction has a history of being a male-dominated field. In fact, women make up only 11% of the construction workforce in the United States. For women like Patricia, the ability to see herself using power tools and hammers was a process of unlearning cultural norms.
Growing up Patricia only saw men in her family building things. “We thought we weren’t allowed to touch [tools], it’s men’s business” Patricia said.
Olesia and her husband Yaroslav moved from Ukraine to the United States in 2019 and soon after started English classes at the Literacy Center.When I asked her if she would feel comfortable sharing about the situation in Ukraine, Olesia jumped at the chance. She said,“now my country needs all the support and help! The more people […] know about Ukraine, the better and more informed people in Russia will be!”
When Mousumi came with her family to the United States, she quickly realized she would have doors open to her here may not have been possible in her home country of India. Mousumi was the first in her family to graduate from college, but once she married and had children, she had was expected to focus more on taking care of her family.
Upon coming to West Michigan, Mousumi found that there were various options for her to attend English classes online while also balancing her time as a mother and helping her children in school. It was at her English classes at the Kent ISD that Mousumi learned about the online Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) English classes with the Literacy Center and Goodwill Employment Services.