Happy Summer!

Just a quick snap from the wine dinner! Longtime board member and supporter George McIntosh dines with retired executive Director Debbie Yoho.

Wine Dinner Raises $1000 for Adult Literacy

For Lizabeth Gray, last week’s wine dinner was a homecoming.

“I grew up in the blue house on Roberts Street here in Lexington,” she said.

Gray was preparing to tell 40 diners about each wine at the fundraiser for Turning Pages literacy tutoring April 24.

The four-course “Taste of France” dinner was the third fundraiser at Main Street Cafe. It raised about $1,000 to help teach reading, writing and other skills to adults in Lexington and Richland counties to help them qualify for better jobs.

The dinner was sponsored by Mirror Associates, Adams Gyemant and Griffin Advisory Group, Main Street Cafe, Palmetto Wine & Spirits and the Lexington County Chronicle & Dispatch-News.

Donations to adult literacy tutoring may be made by credit card at http://turning-pages.org/reading-between-the-wines/ or by calling 782-1210 or 312-1870.

Turning Pages board members Scott Adams and Bruce Donatelli discuss fundraising at the April 24 wine dinner.

Lisbeth Gray introduces one of the wine pairings at the Taste of France dinner.

Interview with a Volunteer

Editor’s note: Today’s post comes from tutor and board member Allison Matthews.

I met up recently with one of our newest volunteers, T.V. Weber, to observe him tutoring his learner and to chat about his work for Turning Pages. Although he and his wife, Alida, have only been with us a short time, he brings with him a long history of service to adults who are learning English as a second language.

When I arrived, the learner, an advanced ESL student from India, was reading aloud an article about methods for reducing carbon emissions. T.V. listened patiently, jumping in from time to time to correct her pronunciation and make sure she’s comprehending the passage. Some of the new words she encounters lead to interesting discussions about the English language’s roots in other languages. When he notices she’s beginning to feel frustrated by a difficult-to-pronounce word, he stops to offer her an additional dose of positive feedback.

After they complete the article, T.V. has his learner read from a high-interest textbook he’s brought about the Egyptian pyramids. Throughout the session, the two maintain an easy rapport. It’s clear they respect each other and enjoy learning together.

At the end, T.V. asks her, “What do you still want to ask me? You’ve got that look on your face…” His learner just grins. Now it was my turn to ask some questions! Here’s what I found out:

How long have you been working with Turning Pages?

I think it’s already been 2 months, but it doesn’t feel like that long!

What prompted you to volunteer as an adult literacy tutor?

TESOL has always been a “hobby” for me. I have one student from Puerto Rico I’ve worked with for 5- 6 years. I’ve seen her go from speaking virtually no English to using it on her job. My wife Alida and I are considering moving to another country to teach English, so we decided to volunteer as a team for Turning Pages to gain teaching experience.

What past experiences have prepared you for the work you’re doing now?

My great-grandparents immigrated here from Czechoslovakia when they were teenagers. My grandparents spoke only Czech, and if you wanted to communicate with them, you’d better speak it, too! So, my father grew up bilingual and bicultural, and he passed on the family expectation that we kids be fluent in more than just English.

What’s the most important insight you’ve gained from the time you’ve spent with adult learners?

To teach ESL right, you need to have tried to learn another language yourself so you can understand the difficulties people face when they are learning a second language! Last year, I was in Chile and accidentally told a clerk that I was going to hit her when I was trying to say that I would pay the bill. Experiences like that remind me of how important it is to be precise with your vocabulary!

What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about becoming a tutor for Turning Pages?

Do your best to put yourself in the shoes of your learner so you can prioritize the weaknesses that need to be addressed in order for her to communicate successfully in our culture.

Happy Birthday, Turning Pages!

I hope everyone is staying safe and warm during the winter weather! Today I want to share a few snaps from our birthday party. Turning Pages is 45 this year. But instead of buying a little red sports car, we’re continuing our commitment to helping adults in the Midlands improve their lives and their incomes through literacy. But first, we took a time-out to spend a little bit of time celebrating.

We had a delicious spread of homemade treats, plus, of course, some birthday cake!

Former director Debbie Yoho shared some inspiring words with us — some kernels of wisdom from her years’ of experience, plus some words from her experience at a national literacy conference.

Board chair Bruce Donatelli also spoke, thanking our donors, volunteers, and the Richland Library for hosting us. Both the Richland and Lexington libraries have been faithful partners to Turning Pages. Many of the branches keep small, private tutoring rooms in which learners and volunteers can meet for sessions.

And then we cut the cake! Happy Birthday, Turning Pages!

Board Member Interview: Genevieve Lyons

What brought you to Turning Pages?

I came to Turning Pages in 2009 as an AmeriCorps VISTA. I was the volunteer manager, so I recruited, trained, and matched volunteers with learners. I also did some tutoring, a bit of web design, and some PR/outreach. I joined the board in 2011. I’m on the PR/Communications subcommittee and I run this website, the PayPal account, and our Facebook and Twitter pages.

What is one of your best “success” moments at Turning Pages?

I used to get nervous for tutor training, to speak in front of a group of people, with any kind of authority. When I was a VISTA I had just graduated from college, and 80% of the volunteers were much older than me. I would spend a lot of time prepping everything I’d say, and hoping for no curveballs. But eventually I got used to it and learned to go with the flow. One day I had about 10 trainees, having a really good discussion, and I just realized that I felt completely at ease and the group was right on track.

Tell us about a challenge and how you negotiated it.

One of the most interesting and challenging things I did was tutor a woman in English as a Second Language. She was well educated in her home country, holding a Master’s degree, but she needed to improve her English to find work here. She was taking a college-level English course at the community college. Tutoring ESL is tough, and makes you look at your own language in new ways. For example, discussing the symbolism and shades of meaning for college-level English, to someone from another culture, was hard! But she also taught me about literary symbolism in her culture.  This learner was so determined, and it was so satisfying to learn that she passed the class.

What is your favorite thing about Turning Pages?

Staying involved with Turning Pages has kept me integrated in a really great community, has broadened my perspective, and helped me meet fantastic people. Professionally it’s been great, too because as a VISTA (and at an under-resourced nonprofit in general) you really get experience that you wouldn’t get in an entry-level job. Also, I got to work with AmeriCorps members at other agencies in Columbia, and as a result I learned a lot about the non-profit world. I would reco

What do you do when you’re not volunteering with Turning Pages?

You can find me reading, drinking coffee, running at the riverwalk, or making a mess in my kitchen.

Are you reading anything good lately?

Nonfiction: I recently finished Orange is the New Black. It was fascinating. Highly recommend.

Fiction: Little Bee by Chris Cleave. It is quite a story but the whole thing hinges on not giving away anything about the plot.

What is your favorite book now? From childhood?

My favorite books from childhood are still some of my favorite books. I loved From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitsugh, and anything by Roald Dahl or Beverly Cleary. The ‘adult’ books I’ve liked best are The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneger, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train by Howard Zinn, and Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

If you could have lunch with one author, living or dead, who would it be?

I would have to choose J. K. Rowling, or Howard Zinn. I always wanted to take one of his history classes at Boston University.

If you had to choose between visiting Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, which would it be?

I’d have to check out Hogwarts. I’d really like to fly a broom.

Our Birthday Wish

Hey everyone! Hoping we’ll see you on Thursday at our Birthday Party!

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Thanks to the Richland Library for hosting us, and for the shout-out on Twitter today. And if we’re not already, let’s be friends on Twitter.

Come Celebrate with Us!

It’s our birthday! And the lovely people at the Richland Library are hosting a party for us! We would love for you to come join us. We’ll have friends, fun, refreshments, and cake (of course)!

Please do come join us.

Happy New Year

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Wishing you a happy and healthy start to 2014 full of family, friends, and good books.

We at Turning Pages are looking forward to continuing our work in the new year. We envision a Midlands in which all adults will have the literacy skills to participate productively at home, at work and in our community. We see it as our mission to help adults in the Midlands read and write better to improve their incomes and lives.

We invite you to join us in whatever way you can, whether it be attending a tutor training and working one-on-one with a learner, donating some old books as you do your January cleaning, or starting off the year with a financial contribution. (It’s easy – we have Paypal!) As always, thank you for what you do to support literacy in the Midlands!

Your Life Sentence

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The end of the year and beginning of a new one is a good time to think about Claire Booth Luce’s challenge to write your life sentence. “See if you can summarize your life in one sentence,” she urged her friends.

Mrs. Luce was an accomplished actress, writer and diplomat. Her challenge is one worth addressing. If you summarize the importance of your life in a single sentence, what would you write? How often would you rewrite it? A single sentence forces us to focus on what’s important to us.

What is your life’s purpose?

What have you done with it?

That’s your life sentence.

Here at Turning Pages, with help from fellow Rotarians, volunteer tutors and board members, our purpose is to help adults learn to read or read better, write and acquire other life skills. This serves three vital purposes:

• Their new skills help them win jobs and promotions to raise their incomes to take care of their families.
• It helps people get off government assistance and improve their lives.
• It gives them a sense of value and personal responsibility.

If you would like to help us help more people, please click on “Donate” to the left on this page where you can make a tax-deductible donation before the end of the year. Thank you.

Kindle or Book?

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Kindles: Love ’em or leave ’em?

I think we can all agree that we are book lovers here at Turning Pages. So, the question is, how do you get your fix? Do you prefer the texture of the pages under your fingerprints, the weight of the book in your hands, the smell of the paper in your nostrils as you open that library door? I love it. Do you fill your paper books with post-it notes, underlines, highlights? Do you love finding a grocery receipt or a train ticket stub or a business card in between the pages of a book? As your eyes scan across this artifact from your life, do you pause from reading to remember what you were doing — buying olives and pickles for the appetizer tray at Thanksgiving dinner, taking the train to the city for your cousin’s wedding, the wedding where the DJ said the wrong name as he introduced the bride and groom? You chuckle because it’s only funny after the fact. Those pages remember.

Or, would you rather slide that thin, light electronic device into your handbag, barely feeling its weight even though it contains, like, ten million words? Do you download library eBooks as though they were emails? You have to admit, it is pretty fantastic that library eBooks will literally return themselves when due. (NO MORE OVERDUE FINES!) Are you, like me, fascinated that an electronic device can take on the visual appearance of the printed page with no backlighting? Do you sometimes press the “page turn” button unnecessarily, just for the pleasure of watching those electronic-ink pixels scurry to rearrange themselves, like a marching band, what form will they take on next? I do.

What are you currently reading? Do you have an eReader? Is it on your holiday wish list?