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u Total number of students: 361u Total number of tutors: 308u Type of instruction provided:

Basic Literacy 12%ESOL 88%

u Total number of instructional hours provided by volunteers: 16,801

u Annual Budget: $347,801

FY15 Numbers at a Glance

ANNUAL REPORT • 2015

Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville/ Albemarle 233 4th Street NW, Box L • Charlottesville, VA 22903

www.literacyforall.org

Dear Friend of Literacy Volunteers,

2015 was an exciting year! It was the Year of Citizenship for Literacy Volunteers as we embarked on the major project of coordinating

Citizenship instruction and naturalization services in our area with the help of a grant from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). By providing consistent, integrated services, any permanent resident seeking Citi-zenship can learn English and complete the paperwork with a minimal amount of bureaucratic hurdles. This is another way we reflect the friendly, welcoming community that is Charlottesville and Albemarle.

Learning for most of our students is a matter of survival. The majority of the students we serve start at the lowest level of literacy— some of them have never even held a pencil when beginning our program. They must learn the language quickly to function. They need the one-to-one tutoring we provide. It’s a joy to see them begin to thrive in our community—walking on the down-town mall with their families, participating in our student events, and working in local businesses. By donating to Literacy Volunteers, you share part of their success. Can you make a gift to Literacy Volunteers today?

Or, can you (or someone you know) become a tutor? We ask for a time commitment of two hours a week for at least one year. Our tutors tell us the experience is as valuable for them as it is for the student! We have several tutor training opportunities coming up over the next few months.

While a federal grant from USCIS and a Virginia Department of Educa-tion grant have provided structure and funding for our English as a Second Language services, Literacy Volunteers remains deeply committed to serving individuals from our local neighborhood who wish to improve their Basic Literacy skills. We remain committed to serving ANY individual in the Charlottesville/ Albemarle area who wants to improve his or her literacy skills. A gift from you will help us be able to accept more students into our program. While we offer our services for free to those who need it, our cost is approximately $800 per student, per year. We served 361 students last year!

Thank you for your generous support of our students who are working to become self-sufficient, contributing members of our community. I hope you enjoy our annual report and reading about all the exciting things that are happening at Literacy Volunteers. —Ellen Osborne, Executive Director

Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville/ Albemarle addresses low literacy and under-

education among adults in our region through free, individualized reading, writing, and English language instruction. Founded in 1983, our mission is to help individuals become better workers, consumers, neighbors, citizens, and

parents through one-to-one tutoring.

“My tutor helped me so

much. She helped me

with my citizenship test

and I passed!” —Solange

Student Achievement Ceremony

Student Demographics Gender: Age: 18-24 . . . . . 39

Female 224 25-34 . . . . . 118 Male 137 35-44 . . . . . 103 45-54 . . . . . . 64 55-64 . . . . . 28 65+ . . . . . . . 9

Employment Status Employed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Unemployed . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Not in labor force . . . . . . . . . 72 Retired . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Level of Education Less than 12th. . . . . . . . . . . . 204 High school diploma . . . . . . 67 Some college . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 College degree. . . . . . . . . . . . 60Ethnicity/Race Asian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Black/African American . . . 60 Hispanic/Latino(a). . . . . . . . 173 Middle Eastern . . . . . . . . . . . 49 White . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

“I say ‘thank you’ for all the people who help this institution because

they help me, too. It’s really important because now I don’t have to be scared when I meet

people who don’t speak Spanish.”—Pedro

Literacy Volunteers publicly recognized 49 students who met significant milestones over the last fiscal year. Seventeen were honored for completing the LVCA program

by testing at the highest level possible. Six reached the milestone of obtaining U.S. Citizenship, and thirty students were honored for studying more than 100 hours in the past year. Local entrepreneur Toan Nguyen was the keynote speaker, in addition to three student speakers, Anastasiia Bratkovska, Lobsang Kedup, and Rudi Reyes. Nguyen is a graduate of Darden Business School and an advocate for self-sufficiency through small, locally owned business initiatives. He is co-founder and owner of C’ville Coffee and co-founder of the Community Investment Collaborative, which seeks to support local entrepreneurs with training and micro-financing.

Students and tutors once again enjoyed a field trip to Monticello, where they learned about Thomas Jefferson’s home and history and enjoyed touring the grounds.

Anastasiia Bratkovska, a program completer, shared her appreciation for LVCA.

Toan Nguyen advised the students to follow their dreams,

work hard, and give back to their communities.

These students were recognized for studying for more than 100 hours during the last fiscal year. Students who study this much are likely to increase their educational functioning level quickly.

Student Book Group

A Motivated Student: Serap Vatansever

Student Outcomes and Achievements

Number of students who achieved this goal

Got a job or better job. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47(16 of these students entered the job market in our area for the first time, generating a total of approximately $120,368 per year in tax revenue.)Improved employability skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Entered other education and/or training . . . . . . . . . . . 37Improved score on standardized test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79Met a work-based goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119Obtained citizenship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Registered to vote/ voted for first time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Obtained a driver’s license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Increased involvement in community activities . . . . . 21Increased involvement in children’s education . . . . . . 53Attained consumer skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Attained wellness and healthy lifestyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Other personal goal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Upon meeting Serap Vatansever, a re-cent completer of Literacy Volunteers’

program, the first thing you might notice is her smile. The second thing might be her warm and effusive personality. Within moments, you realize how hard it would be for this talkative and energetic woman to move to a country where she could not speak the language.

Which is exactly what Serap did two years ago when she relocated to Charlot-tesville from Turkey with her husband, a Ph.D. candidate at U.Va. At first she admits she found Charlottesville bor-ing—largely because she didn’t know anyone and wasn’t comfortable speaking English with the people she met. Though she studied English in Turkey, she felt she was better at reading and writing it than speaking and hearing it.

“My listening in English was really terrible,” Serap explained. “If I speak to you the first time, it is really hard for me to understand you. After three or four times, I can understand you.” Thanks to her studies at Literacy Volunteers, her English improved to the point she was able to obtain a volunteer position at the

biochemistry lab at U.Va.

For much of the past two years she’s studied Eng-lish with long-time LVCA tutor Pat L’Herrou in a small group setting. “Serap is an excit-ing student with whom to work,” Pat said. “She enjoys learning about so much, not only the English language and America, but about our cultures and really about the world.”

Serap also enjoyed working with Pat and being able to discuss a variety of topics in their sessions. “I really like her personality,” Serap said of Pat. “We talked about history, we talked about books, we talked about our cultures. We shared almost everything.”

Before moving to the United States, Serap worked as a banker at the Na-tional Bank in Turkey and holds a

Master’s Degree in Food Sciences. She is hoping to eventually enter a Ph.D. program.

“If you want to be an engineer,” Serap said, “You need to speak English, so my learning at Literacy Volunteers is really useful for me.” Now Serap feels more confident in her ability to speak in Eng-lish and much happier. “You are a human, we have to speak. If you couldn’t speak the language, you couldn’t communicate with the people.”

We know our students need to read better, but we also want them to love reading, too. Led by tutor Sara

Gondwe, we created a student book group that meets once a week on Mondays to discuss books ranging from popular young adult literature to short books on historical figures such as Frederick Douglass and “Flo Jo,” aka Florence Griffith Joyner. We are so thankful for Sara’s efforts in or-ganizing the group as it gives students another opportunity to practice speaking, reading, and writing in English in a relaxed and fun setting.

Over the past year we’ve added more ways for our tutors to develop their skills and socialize with each

other. Our successful Tutor Book Group, with 26 mem-bers, celebrated its one year birthday in January. The group meets monthly on the third Saturday of the month to discuss a wide variety of books, selected by vote. The group also rotates meeting locations, which occasionally include local wineries.

Tutor Roundtables meet once a month at the noon hour and allow tutors to discuss their concerns and triumphs informally with each other and staff. We also continued to hold bimonthly Tutor Workshops on hot topics such as the Naturalization Process, Pronunciation, Grammar, and Student Motivation and Persistence.

Two new tutors discuss their reasons for becoming tutors at a recent training. We currently hold seven tutor

training events per year.

Once upon a time, Desi Carson was just like any other recent University

of Virginia graduate trying to find her place in the world. She was driving to her job at U.Va. intramurals when she heard a Literacy Volunteers ad on the radio and magic happened.

“I’m only in my car for five minutes a day. So when I heard the radio ad for Literacy Volunteers, I thought it sounded awesome,” Desi said. “I definitely don’t believe in coincidences.” Desi signed up

for tutor training and soon after began working with Karen, a young woman from Honduras.

“She has two kids and a husband here,” Desi said. “She’s always happy and energetic. She was a level 0 coming in and she’s definitely above that now.” Desi and Karen like to be creative in their sessions, exploring the downtown mall in addition to making the most of LVCA resources.

“We laugh and joke a lot. When we first come in, our first fifteen minutes are

catching up on the week. That’s always fun. She tells me about the kids she baby-sits. She’s always really open to different sort of lessons,” Desi said. One time, Desi had her mom call her during their tutor-ing session to give Karen the chance to practice talking in English with someone new.

For Desi, Literacy Volunteers has not only helped her make the most of this transitional time in her life, but also helped her gain empathy for immigrants in the United States. “I think LVCA is really important for people trying to learn English because sometimes they come here and they don’t have the money for formal lessons—I don’t even have the money for formal lessons. So I think that’s what makes it really important for people just trying to find their feet and find their place in the community.”

“It’s definitely brought me down to earth,” Desi added. “I know how much I love to talk, so I couldn’t imagine not be-ing able to communicate well.”

Desi is still surprised that a quick radio announcement has had such a powerful impact on her life. “Literacy Volunteers is always worth it, for the students and for the people who volun-teer. It’s not a big time commitment, but you can really make a big difference in people’s lives.”

Tutor Training and Support

Tutor Profile: Desi Carson

Tutor Desi Carson and student Karen

LVCA Tutor DemographicsIn FY15, 113 new people were trained as tutors, increas-ing our total number of tutors to 308. The dedication of our students and tutors resulted in 79 students advancing to a higher educational level. 19,147 volunteer hours were logged, equivalent to an economic value of $476,760.

Our tutors come to us from a variety of sources:• Referred by another tutor or friend = 20% • LVCA website = 16%• Newspaper = 12% • Special event (volunteer fair, cultural event) = 16%• The rest of our volunteers heard about Literacy

Volunteers through flyers, radio, television, church, employer, or other means.

Our tutor retention rate, those who return for 2 or more years (measured from FY15 to FY16) is 88%.

How volunteer time is spent:Instructional hours for tutors .....................10,724 hoursTutor training and planning ..............................6,077 hoursNon-tutor volunteer hours ............................2,346 hours

(event planning, office assistance, etc)

“My student grew up in a country where she was not allowed to go to school. Slowly but surely she’s learning to speak English at the same time she’s learning how to read and write it. I learn so much from her about another culture.”

—Tutor Richard Alonzo

“I really enjoy this time that I do something very

unlike what I do the rest of my life. It’s also very worth-

while. It has enriched my life a great deal.”

—Tutor Mallika Rodriguez

Income and Expenses

$55,195$4,003$68,410$3,115$79,068$53,616$63,140$1,093$39,157

Total Income: $366,797

Total Expenses: $347,801A complete copy of our audited financial statements is available by contacting the Literacy Volunteers office at 434-977-3838.

$196,384$32,835$7,341$2,435$2,444$15,076$11,283$3,567$7,905$52,183$3,990$2,965$1,157$2,297$3,709$2,230