Now go, develop for us!

A few months ago, our talented Development Officer moved on from LCCT. It was a sad time for us and we missed her (self-proclaimed) snarkyness around the office. On top of missing her personality, we gravely missed her high-quality development work. But rather than stretching our budget to hire a new development employee, we decided it would be best to split her roles (and they were many!) between a few of us here at LCCT.

Here's how my initial development meeting went down...

"So Peter (who admittedly has very minimal development experience), how would you like to take on the role of event manager, individual giving cultivation (huh, what's that!?!), and health literacy grants writing and management?"

"Umm, yeah that sounds good. Thanks." (Peter immediately heads to his computer to Google "Individual giving cultivation" and spends the following nights reading books on "The Benevon Model.")

Well, maybe it wasn't that simple...I mean, I did have a bit more to say than "umm, yeah that sounds good." But walking away from the meeting I felt like I was in a whirlwind trying to wrap my head around the new roles.

It's been a sharp learning curve (that I'm still in the midst of!), and my first big event is coming up this Sunday. It's called Literacy on Tap and it's going to be a friggin blast! It's an invite-only event (ooo la la!) and we're going to have live music, free appetizers from Zax, free beer from Jester King and Live Oak Breweries, and lots of word games. All is coming together these last few days before the event and (the purpose of this blog post) I have collaboration to thank for it.

Although I came into this position feeling a bit nervous about my new jobs, I was fully supported by colleagues, board members and volunteers. Take the Literacy on Tap planning committee for example, our planning committee is comprised of a development coworker and our ED, two members of our board of directors (one of which is the chair), and three highly committed volunteers (who happen to be two close friends of mine and my gf). This eclectic group coalesced and planned the most successful event in LCCT history! Well, that's a bit of stretch considering the event hasn't even taken place yet, but I can say that with only three more days to prepare I'm feeling very calm and stress-free. I'm confident it'll be a great event.

I've been with the Literacy Coalition for 2 years now and I've come to realize that it's the collaborative effort on projects and unending support that allows me to really love my job. I know that on any given day I can reach out to colleagues, board members, volunteers and community members for guidance and collaboration, and they'll be there without hesitation.

Though It May Be Too Early to Start Shopping for a Halloween Costume...

It's never too early for LCCT to start gearing up for October's National Health Literacy Month! You might be thinking, "do they realize that October is almost five months away?" The answer is yes, but don't worry. We do have a reason! We've got big plans for Health Literacy Month and want to get everyone involved, so we're loading up the bandwagon starting now! That means there's no better time than the present for you to tell us about what you’ve been doing, or what you’d like to do to improve communication between Central Texas patients and their healthcare providers.

Your efforts are making a difference in our community, so don’t let them go unrecognized. No effort is too small! Tell us what you're up to and let us promote your commitment to improved health communication during National Health Literacy Month!

Here’s what we need to know: What are you doing to combat low health literacy? What projects or discussions has your organization started to address the problem in our community? Do you want to join the health literacy movement, but don’t know how to get started?

Comment and tell us about it! Let's put our heads together to make this Health Literacy the biggest Central Texas has ever seen!

Never a Boring Classroom!

Only one thing will get me out of bed early on Saturday—an LCCT training for literacy instructors. Maybe you don’t kick off your weekend by getting up early to talk about the fascinating world of language acquisition, but there are some seriously smart and fun people who do. The volunteers and staff instructors I meet through LCCT never fail to impress me with their passion, insight, and ability. Yet what I enjoy most of all is how our classroom becomes a community.

We’re like-minded: we all care about literacy and the people we serve. We’re driven toward a common goal: to learn and share what we know about good teaching. We reject that a classroom should be boring, repetitive, or pointless. We pursue the prop or image that engages people, the lesson that builds on itself, and we want meaningful communication most of all. Here’s a look at last Saturday’s ESL Instructor Training!

Interest Inventory Cards let students look at images and make associations: they depict people at work, a doctor, a person holding a map, etc. Participants rank them based on what’s important to learn in class vs. what’s less important. I’m amazed at how many different associations one picture can produce.

One picture on the cards has a little blond kid holding a boombox. People in the training have said this image represents music, technology, dancing, childcare, entertainment, spending money, and Justin Bieber. Now that I think about it, I guess those are all related.

Authentic materials are props to represent the real world in the classroom. A volunteer, Ray, uses an authentic toy cellphone to make an authentic imaginary phone call.

Hard at work planning an ESL lesson—this group’s topic was “Housing” and they did a great job. If you need to find a new apartment on craigslist, I highly recommend them!

Another group hard at work planning… wait, is that a Toblerone? This group is hard at work planning a lesson and eating a Toblerone.

Classrooms don’t have to be boring, and with the people who show up for LCCT trainings, they never are. We had teachers, writers, gardening enthusiasts, musicians… and each person had a unique story that would make them great company on the weekend. I wish I could write here about how awesome all of these people were, but I’m out of space. So if you want to meet great people who make the classroom a fun place to be, get involved with literacy! Go to http://www.willread.org/Get-Involved.html

Literacy Day at the Capitol

This year’s Literacy Day at the Capitol got off to an unusual start – we had to reschedule at the last minute because of abnormal winter weather and Austin’s rolling blackouts!

City Hall the day after what was originally going to be Literacy Day

When Literacy Day at the Capitol did happen this past Thursday, though, it was a resounding success. Nearly 300 people came out to advocate. After breakfast and advocacy training at the First Baptist Church, we all marched up to the Capitol in groups. I tagged along with Becky Rhodes and the Austin Academy. Our group went to visit Senator Kirk Watson’s staff and had a sit-down meeting. We went around the table and introduced ourselves, with each of the students explaining why he or she was attending the Austin Academy. The staffer was genuinely interested in their stories and asked quite a few questions about the difficulties adult learners face in their educational journeys. We left behind printed information about the severe effects of illiteracy and policies that affect pivotal adult literacy programs.

The Austin Academy group before heading to the Capitol

Across the Capitol, student advocates were able to help increase awareness of adult literacy programs and impress how important those programs are. Other groups had experiences like the Austin Academy's, and were able to really educate staffers about the reality of illiteracy in our community.

More groups visiting the Capitol

It was a successful day! The rain held off everything wrapped up right around noon. The only downside to my morning was getting stuck walking several blocks back to the Coalition’s offices in the pouring rain!