LIFELONG LEARNERS

 Si está interesado en aprender el idioma inglés, llame o envíe un mensaje de texto al 630-584-2811 o visite www.lvfv.org/needa-tutor.  If you are interested in learning the

English language, call or text 630-5842811 or visit www.lvfv.org/need-a-tutor.

FOX VALLEY VOLUNTEERS AND STUDENTS COLLABORATE ON ENGLISH SKILLS

By Kevin Druley

LIFELONG Learners

By design, tutors and students with St. Charles-based Literacy Volunteers Fox Valley meet one-onone, in person or virtually. Aline Vivirito-Valais, a tutor and board member, favors the former approach. She finds taking extra steps helps deepen the connection with her student, an adult wishing to learn English. Vivirito-Valais incorporates geography into her lessons, toting maps of Europe, the United States and Ukraine, her student’s country of origin. “Depending on where our conversations take us, I often pull out the maps and we communicate through those. She tells me where her cousins are and how they are impacted,” Vivirito-Valais says, referencing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We regularly talk about it. It’s obviously very difficult for her but it’s important that she’s able to get anything off her chest that she needs, in my opinion.” Recently, executive director Peg Coker says, several Ukrainian learners have enrolled in the program, which serves adults who live and work in almost all of Kane County. Its mission is “to help individuals in the region acquire the literacy skills that they need to function more effectively in contemporary U.S. society,” the website states. “We want to equip and empower individuals who are otherwise unable to participate fully in our community.” Trained volunteers meet with adult students for one hour every week. While Literacy Volunteers Fox Valley coordinates convenient, public meeting locations, various tutors and students have opted to keep the virtual learning setting that was the norm early in the pandemic. One student who recently relocated to Toronto has continued his sessions with a Fox Valley-based tutor, Coker says. Once unconventional or even unfathomable, such arrangements are what Coker and colleagues hope will help augment the organization and keep it moving forward. With LVFV’s most prominent annual fundraisers, a donor breakfast and the Trivia Bee for Literacy, unable to be held in recent years given pandemic restrictions, the organization has planned for September a 5K that allows participants to log activity from their present location. “You can be here or you can be in California walking and take part in this fundraiser,” Coker explains. “So, it’s a rather new venture for us, but I think it’s going to be a successful one.” The trivia bee, meanwhile, is set to be held in person March 18, 2023, with the theme to be announced in January. For more information on attending events or getting involved with the organization itself, visit www.lvfv.org. On the tutor side, Coker beams about volunteers’ desire to give back, an ethic that has shaped the organization for more than 35 years. The sentiment comes full circle for tutor Mike Sliczniak, who, amid political unrest in his native Poland, immigrated with his family to St. Charles in the early 1980s. Vivirito-Valais taught English as a second language in her homeland of France before moving to St. Charles with her husband, an Illinois native. She recalls many proud moments, including when her student grasped the difference between responding to the questions, “Where do you live?” and “Where are you from?” “I believe this organization is great, and I’m very happy that even though English is my second language, they are giving me the opportunity to help someone else,” she says. “And I felt welcomed by everyone in the organization and that has helped greatly.”