October 10th, 2012 Annapolis Mayor Josh Cohen presented our Literacy Council board members with a Proclamation at City Hall, thanking AACLC for 35 years of selfless endeavors of its members and sponsoring groups to improve adult literacy in our community.
Pictured above, from left to right: Recording Secretary Mary Jane McCarthy, President Robert Caspar, Treasurer Megan Jackson, Mayor Joseph Cohen, Director Lisa Vernon, and Corresponding Secretary Thomas Vernon.
In September, 2012, Anne Arundel County issued a Proclamation, declaring September 8th as International Literacy Day to “pay a particular and public tribute to the efforts of the Anne Arundel County Literacy Council, to commend the 35 years of selfless endeavors of its members and sponsoring groups and to make known the splendid service it offers to improving adult literacy in our community.”
We have trained thousands of volunteers to become literacy tutors since AACLC began in 1977 and have improved the lives of well over a thousand students and their families during that time as well.
We have so much to celebrate!
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All meetings will be held from 7:00 to 8:45 p.m. Please note that our February through June meetings will be held on Wednesdays. All other meetings are scheduled for Thursdays. Eastport United Methodist Church is located at 926 Bay Ridge Avenue in Annapolis – across from the Eastport Shopping Center and next to the Eastport Fire Station.
We had 38 new tutors present at Day 1 of our tutor training on September 29th. These tutors are being trained in both basic literacy and ESL instruction, and will all be matched with students after the completion of their training on October 13th. A big thank you goes to Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church for graciously allowing us to use their meeting rooms for these two days of training.
TD Bank Regional President Brian R. Monday (left) and Store Manager Joan Kapiskosky (right) present AACLC Director Lisa Vernon (center) with a $5,000.00 TD Charitable Foundation grant on September 29th.
The TD Charitable Foundation has long supported not-for-profit institutions and their important work throughout our region. Please stop by TD Bank’s new Edgewater branch, introduce yourself, and thank them for their generous support of our Literacy Council.
September was filled with productive activities and good news for our Literacy Council! In addition to holding our AA Cares fundraiser and receiving an “Education Nonprofit of the Week” designation, we staged a fundraiser and 35th Anniversary Celebration at Barnes & Noble. We also held a very successful Day 1 of our Fall tutor training, with 38 new tutors in attendance.
The AACLC was honored to receive a generous $5000.00 grant from the TD Charitable Foundation, which was presented to us at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Grand Opening of the TD Bank in Edgewater, MD. We were interviewed by Fay Mauro on WNAV radio, featured in a Glen Burnie East Gazette article, and received Proclamations from Anne Arundel County and the City of Annapolis to honor our 35 years of improving adult literacy through our free, individualized, one-to-one tutoring program.
We have so much to celebrate!
Sincerely,
Lisa Vernon
AACLC’s Executive Director Lisa Vernon and volunteer tutor Maggie Cullman were guests for an interview by WNAV radio on September 4, 2012. We’re always glad to have a chance to spread the work about the work of our dedicated volunteers and lives they are changing through literacy tutoring.
You can listen to the six-minute interview now with this link:
Click Here to read article online
Deborah Ryan Johnson of Millersville has been a high school teacher, an elementary school principal and trained other teachers. Yet, she describes the student she tutors through the Anne Arundel County Literacy Council, as the “single most highly motivated and hardest working person I’ve ever worked with in a teacher-student capacity.”
Her student’s enthusiasm showed when he was asked how he felt about his tutoring sessions.“I don’t like it, I love it!” he said. Johnson’s student is a man in his mid-30s who recently moved to the United States from Jamaica. His wife, the local library, and a community center helped him connect with the literacy council. He spoke with Capital Gazette on the condition that he not be identified by name because of his illiteracy.
“I can tell you, it’s beautiful!” the man said. “My tutor, she’s good, very good. I want to get a high school diploma, a proper education for a good job. With education you can go where you want to go. I’ve got the chance to do it. I’m grabbing it with both hands and I’m never letting it go!”
Johnson and her student are a bit unusual in that she travels from Millersville to Annapolis for their sessions. Most of the council tutors live in south county, so students in that area are usually able to be matched with a local tutor.
“We have 25 tutor/student pairs currently meeting at North County library,” Lisa Vernon, the literacy council program director wrote in an email. “Many of those tutors travel from Annapolis to meet their student. The majority of our students live in the northern part of our county, and many of them are willing to meet at the North County library. We always have a shortage of tutors for the Glen Burnie area.”
Ellie Morton of Point Pleasant recently contacted the Capital Gazette to ask for coverage of the council’s services. Morton is currently tutoring four students, three at the North County Area library and one at the Provinces library in Severn. “It really brings to light the fact that many people, even if they graduated from high school, don’t have the basic foundation, they’ve just been passed through,” she said.
Two of Morton’s students are working toward taking their GED exam. Another would like to be able to read the TV Guide and other magazines. “We need to target north county,” Morton said.
According to Vernon, the group currently has five students who would like to meet at the North County Area Library, but haven’t yet been matched with tutors. So far, only two of the volunteers who have signed up for the next tutor training are from north county. “The need is great,” Vernon said.
The two-day tutor training seminar will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 29 and Oct. 13 at Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church, 611 Baltimore Annapolis Blvd. in Severna Park.
The literacy council is a volunteer nonprofit organization that provides free, one-on-one tutoring to adults in Anne Arundel County who have low-level reading skills or are English language learners. It also provides free training for the volunteer tutors and skill assessors.
To register for the tutor training session, email programdirector@aaclc.org or call 410-798-0408.
For more details about the organization, visit www.icanread.org.
The council needs funds to pay for training and instructional materials for tutors and students.
The new Anne Arundel Cares website has selected the organization as its nonprofit of the week in the education category. Donations can be made to the literacy council through Thursday at www.aacares.org/literacy. The three organizations with the most donations will also receive a $2,500 grant sponsored by Capital One Bank and an anonymous donor.
A book fair benefiting the group will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble, 2516 Solomons Island Road in Annapolis. Patrons who mention AACLC when they check out during those hours will have up to 15 percent of their proceeds donated to the council.
Barnes & Noble online purchasers, who use the book fair identification number 10823003 from Saturday through Sept. 19, will have 10 percent of their proceeds donated to the council. The fair will also feature five local authors hosting book signings and prizes from local merchants given away every hour.
