APPLETON — When Marenrri Duboy, 44, and wife Yoamirka Rodriguez, 37, legally came to the United States in March 2008 from Cuba, they spoke no English.
“The first time is so hard because when I listen to people I think it is all Chinese,” Duboy, now of Appleton, said of simply trying to order and pay for food at Denver International Airport.
Once planted in the Fox Cities, the couple’s frustration with not being able to communicate led them to the Fox Valley Literacy Coalition in Appleton.
Just as Duboy — now a full-time pastor of the Hispanic American Baptist Church based at Community Church in Appleton and an associate professor of Hispanic Bible School in Chicago — sees the United States as his second country, “literacy coalition is like my second house.”
Celebrating 20 years of providing English literacy to native English-speaking adults and English language learners in Outagamie, Calumet and Waupaca counties, the Fox Valley Literacy Coalition will host “Improving Lives and Building Community” at 5 p.m. Wednesday in the Appleton Public Library lower-level meeting room. The public is welcome to attend, but seating is limited.
Christine Cheevers, FVLC executive director, said Duboy’s story is our story.
“Our story here in America, it doesn’t change,” she said. “We are a country of immigrants. It’s close to home for me; my great-grandfather came here in the late 1880s from Germany. … The face of the immigrant has changed over time, but people who are new to our country feel isolation in our community today when they can’t speak the language. Sometimes a student will say, ‘My tutor is the only American I speak to here.’
“It is sad. But when they know the language what we find out is that we share some of the same approaches to life and some of the same emotions and frustrations and the same family values. We might be culturally diverse but once we … can speak the same language, we find out that we have so much in common and friendships blossom.”
Dream weavers
The FVLC was founded Sept. 8, 1990, which also is International Literacy Day. With their partner program, Literacy Education Services, the organization’s mission is to improve people’s lives and build community by providing and coordinating literacy services.
Trained volunteers are crucial to the intimate student/teacher partnerships that form. Services are offered to students at no charge.
Duboy now calls his tutor family. “He has a lot of patience and passion for people,” he said. “They were the first people who you understand clear.”
Beverly Clifton of Appleton began tutoring in January. With a background in human resources she understood the need for at least a high school education, being able to read and to be able to speak English really well.
Clifton is helping a Haitian man build on the English he already knows and a young American woman who has mental health issues and has not attended a formal school since fifth grade.
“She has been working many, many years on her GED, and I am tutoring her in math, in particular,” Clifton said.
But the tutoring goes far beyond book learning.
“When I initially met her she really suffered from low self-esteem and confidence,” Clifton said. “Her whole life she was told she would be nothing and continues to receive negative feedback from the people who should be the ones encouraging her.
“So while we work on the math part of it, my role is to also encourage her. … And what happened is we started to see her walking taller. …You become not only that academic (person), but you also become a life coach. And we’re seeing some real positive results with her.”
Tutors at FVLC become part of the student’s hopes and dreams.
“And whether it’s to get their GED, whether it’s to be able to get a good job to support their family or bring them here to become a citizen, you become part of that,” Clifton said. “The impact that you have on their lives through tutoring is way more significant than you originally think about in the tutoring experience.”
“It’s more than reading, writing and English,” said Karen Schilt, FVLC program and volunteer coordinator. “It is mentoring. It is friendship. It is life skills. It is meeting those needs when they come up. And it’s transformative.”
The future
The United Way Fox Cities, local businesses, family foundations and churches, as well as generous individual donors, financially support the work of the FVLC.
And in honor of its 20th anniversary, the J.J. Keller Foundation has issued a challenge grant of $20,000 with a goal of matching the money by Dec. 1.
“The foundation challenge is going to help us get through 2010 because that’s how it works here,” Cheevers said. “We don’t get one cent of government money. It’s all privately funded. So that’s a huge thing.”
“The J.J. Keller Foundation, at its very core, is dedicated to addressing the causes and consequences of poverty,” said executive director Mary Harp-Jirschele, who will be the featured speaker at Wednesday’s celebratory event. “The way we see it, the lack of good, solid literacy skills has a huge impact on an individual and his or her ability to thrive in this world. The Literacy Coalition has a mission of improving lives and building community, and that’s a cause we have no trouble getting behind.”
The FVLC and its partner association, Literacy Education Services, which operates in the lower level of First United Methodist Church, Appleton, have about 120 volunteers. In honor of its anniversary, the coalition has set a goal to train 20 new volunteers in September, October and November.
“The more interest we can create in the volunteer tutoring experience, the more outreach we will do to potential clients,” Cheevers said, adding the waiting list now stands at about 30 to 35.
While clients are referred to the literacy coalition by a number of local service agencies, the one Cheevers most appreciates is word of mouth.
“Somebody tells somebody they work with. Somebody tells somebody else at church on Sunday. Somebody tells their cousin or their brother-in-law, it spreads through different communities and people know that we’re here,” she said.
Roots and wings
Nancy Pierce of Appleton says she should have been an English teacher but instead has been a longtime volunteer tutor with the literacy coalition. The most rewarding part of her job is getting to know more about the students and watching as they grasp and can communicate in English.
Her current student, Galyna, a 39-year-old college graduate from the Ukraine who now lives in Appleton, has adopted Pierce as her mother. “And we’re good friends,” Pierce said.
On Sept. 10, Yuedong Zhang will travel with wife Cuiwen Liu to Milwaukee to be sworn in as a U.S. citizen. Schilt also will make the journey.
When Schilt asked if the Appleton couple’s son, who was the reason they wanted to take citizenship classes, would make it his father’s swearing in ceremony, they said no.
Then Cuiwen took Schilt’s hands into her own and said, “You come; you are like family. You are like my best friend in America.”
Schilt didn’t think twice about her decision. “It’s such an honor,” she said. “I’ve never witnessed anything like that. It’s like birthing a child.”
IF YOU GO
What: “Improving Lives and Building Community”
When: 5 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Appleton Public Library, lower-level meeting room, downtown Appleton
Info: Free and open to the public with limited seating. Call 920-991-9840 or foxvalleylit@tds.net.
A little help
The need for the Fox Valley Literacy Coalition:
æ Thirty million Americans read no better than the average elementary school child. In Outagamie County alone, 12,100 residents lack literacy skills, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.
æ The ability to read and write is the basis for all other education.
æ Literacy is necessary for an individual to understand information that is out of context, whether written or verbal.
æ Literacy is essential if we are to eradicate poverty at home and abroad, improve infant mortality rates, address gender inequality and create sustainable development.
æ Without literacy skills — reading, writing, math, solving problems and accessing and using technology — today’s adults will struggle to take part in the world around them and fail to reach their full potential as parents, community members and employees.
Source: Fox Valley Literacy Coalition
Home office
The Fox Valley Literacy Coalition is located at 103 W. Washington St., Appleton. For more information, to donate or to volunteer, call 920-991-9840.
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