Illinois Literacy

              Secretary of State Jesse White recently awarded
nearly $6 million to 164 literacy projects in Illinois.
Following are descripitions of those awards along
with personal success stories resulting from liter-acy
projects funded last year.
ADULT VOLUNTEER LITERACY — $3,938,767
was awarded to 88 programs to provide training
for volunteers who tutor adults over age 17 who
read, write, compute or comprehend below the
9th-grade level or score below SPL 7 for speakers
of foreign languages.
FY12 Success Story — John Wood
Community College, Quincy
In her first year as a kindergarten teacher, Gena
Awerkamp’s husband was killed in a plane crash.
She continued teaching for a few more years then
decided to go back to school to get her law degree
in order to support her family. After getting her
law degree, she practiced law for six years. She
remarried and moved to Quincy and continued
practicing law for another 20 years. She retired
six years ago after being diagnosed with inopera-ble
lung cancer; she didn’t think she had long to
live.
Gena began to get bored at home and jumped at
the chance to take the volunteer tutor training
through the community college. She was matched
with Debra Bradford who just won a Spotlight on
Achievement Award. They began working togeth-er
to improve Debra’s reading level then moved on
to work on her goal of getting her GED, focusing
on social studies and language arts reading.
When Debra took those parts of the GED test, she
passed them. Now, they are working on math.
This is the most difficult subject for Debra but she
is making progress. She is a hard worker and very
motivated to reach her goal. Since her reading
improved, Debra has changed. She has more con-fidence
and even took on a tutoring job to help a
man who was reading at a 2nd-grade level.
Because of her positive experience with Debra,
Gena plans to continue tutoring. This experience
has reminded her how much fun it is to help
somebody learn.
FAMILY LITERACY – $1,404,400 was awarded
to 46 programs to provide parents and children,
both individually and together, instructional serv-ices
to enhance their basic reading, math, writing
or language skills. Grants are awarded to partner-ships
that include an adult literacy provider, a
public library and a child-at-risk organization.
I am very proud of the work being done in our Adult Literacy grant programs across the state.
Last year, about 22,000 learners were assisted in improving their literacy skills. There are
many reasons why someone may not have been successful in school. They may have had
learning difficulties or the challenges in their lives interfered with their success. But as
adults, these learners have reached out to our programs and begun to do the work needed
to reach their goals. I applaud each and every one of these adult learners, and I think you
will too when you read their stories in this issue.
I encourage everyone to participate in this year’s Family Reading Night on Thursday, November 15. For ways
you can celebrate the theme “One World, Many Stories,” see page 3, or visit the Literacy Office website at
www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/library/literacy/familylit.html.
Jesse White
Secretary of State & State Librarian
Jesse White
Secretary of State
& State Librarian
ILLINOLIS ITERACY
FALL
2012
Secretary White awards $6 million to literacy projects Photo courtesy Quincy Herald-Whig
Adult learner Debra Bradford (left) with volunteer tutor Gena
Awerkamp at John Wood Community College.
(continued on page 2)