August | VOLUNTEER NEWSLETTER | 2025 | | Volunteer Hours This School Year: 7633 | | |
| National Dog Day, celebrated annually on August 26, is a chance to celebrate the loyal companions who greet us with wagging tails and unconditional love every single day. From goofy antics to quiet cuddles, dogs remind us not to take life too seriously and to savor simple joys. | | | |
As we close out the school year and welcome a new one at Literacy Source, we are filled with gratitude for the incredible dedication and heart of our volunteer community. Together, you contributed an astounding 7,633 hours of service this year, time spent not only running warm-ups, managing Zoom breakout rooms, and assisting with reading and writing activities, but also sitting side-by-side with students to build confidence in English, citizenship, technology, and job readiness skills. At the heart of our mission is teaching adults to read, write, and do basic math—skills that are true game-changers for learners striving to find jobs, gain citizenship, and create more hopeful futures. Your commitment makes this possible.
Thanks to you, our students have not only made progress in the classroom but also shared their talents and leadership with the broader community. They joined the May Day march for workers’ rights, supported our fundraising luncheon, and showcased their cultures through Ukrainian art, coffee traditions, and dance at our Open House. In our Work Skills Tutoring Program, volunteers guided learners through resumes, interviews, and job searches—helping students secure employment or gain valuable tools for their career paths. We’ve also celebrated learners returning as class assistants in our Democracy Voucher Program, a powerful example of collaboration, lifelong learning, and community in action.
At Literacy Source, we believe education must be rooted in equity, inclusion, and celebration, and this year has been a true reflection of those values. With every hour you have given, you’ve made classrooms more welcoming, opportunities more accessible, and learning more joyful. Literacy Source is stronger and more vibrant because of you.
In community,
Liz Wurster
Communications Coordinator
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Business is different when you're black.
~J Hackett, Founder of Wall Street AVL
August is Black Business Month, a time to recognize and support the innovation, resilience, and contributions of Black entrepreneurs. Celebrating Black Business Month goes beyond shopping—it’s about honoring the history of Black enterprise, understanding the systemic barriers faced, and committing to economic equity. By learning about the legacy of Black entrepreneurship—whether it’s Tulsa’s historic Black Wall Street or today’s local Black-owned shops and service providers—we educate ourselves and help ensure that progress continues. From dining at Black-owned restaurants, to amplifying their stories on social media, to attending networking events, each action strengthens not only individual businesses but our collective community.
In his TED Talk, Black Wall Street: The Key to Unlocking Any City’s Economy, J Hackett, founder of Black Wall Street AVL, shared his journey of navigating the extra layers of challenge that come with being a Black entrepreneur. His story highlights both the resilience of Black business owners and the barriers they face, from zoning struggles to coded expectations to “not sound so Black.” In his talk, Hackett points us toward solutions rooted in relationship and collaboration. Through the work of Black Wall Street AVL, they identified three guiding principles—cultivate, connect, collaborate—which sparked tangible impact, enrolling 70 businesses in their first year and generating over $1 million in revenue. This success isn’t unique to Asheville; it reflects a much larger truth that when Black businesses are supported, entire communities prosper. History shows us that cities thrive when Black businesses thrive; from Richmond to Durham to Tulsa, Black entrepreneurship has long fueled innovation and growth.The key is ensuring that we continue to cultivate those relationships, connect with allies and stakeholders, and collaborate on projects that bring shared prosperity.
Let’s commit to celebrating Black Business Month by patronizing Black-owned establishments, leaving reviews, and recommending them to our networks. Let’s amplify their voices online, attend local events, and seek partnerships that foster shared growth. And just as many of our own adult students—particularly Black immigrants and refugees—work to overcome barriers and build skills that open doors to opportunities like starting businesses, we too can play a role in cultivating, connecting, and collaborating so that everyone in our community has the chance to thrive.
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Teaching Listening with Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab
Listening is one of the four vital language skills for ESL, EFL, and ELL students. There are many great resources on the internet that teachers and tutors can use. One of them is called Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab.
The website has a bunch of free listening lessons that range from beginning ESL and academic English. Each lesson has a pre-listening activity, the listening activity itself, and post listening activities. There is even a transcript, which I highly recommend using with students...
You can read the full teaching tip here!
Erik Bodlaender, ESOL 4/5 Instructor
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Experienced Tutor Workshop (in person)
When: Saturday, September 27th 10am - 12:30pm
Where: At Lake City Center: Instructions here.
Trainers: Megan Dalton (ESOL & Ready to Work Instructor) & Elena Jounina (ABE Instructor)
Please join this Google Classroom to RSVP and complete the Pre-Work. This training is designed for tutors who are matched and working with students.
We know that you are constantly working to address your student's individual needs and we are here to support you with this development training! Please come and share ideas, get support for challenges, ideas for activities for adapting class materials, help with scaffolding activities, and more.
Workshop objectives:
- Learn how to adapt activities from student classes to in person or online tutoring, keeping in mind culturally responsive teaching practices and routines
- Bring your questions, challenges, success stories and meet other matched/experienced tutors
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Congratulations and thank you to these volunteers who have achieved a year of service! We are so appreciative of all your hard work and dedication to Literacy Source.
- Barbara Kurkowski - ESOL Tutor
- Dennis Willerford - ESOL Tutor
- Evelyn Anulacion - Conversation Partner
- Griffin Hehmeyer - Conversation Partner
- Jessica Howard - Conversation Partner
- Larry Breslauer - Conversation Partner
- Mohna Shah - Conversation Partner/ Board Member
- Peter Biggs - Conversation Partner/Board Member
| | Additional Volunteer Needs | | |
1) New Student Registration (NSR) Help Needed!
We are looking for volunteers to help meet and greet our new students coming to the center for the first time.
- Monday 9/15: 4:30 - 5:30/45pm
- Tuesday 9/16: 8:30 - 10:15am
- Wednesday 9/25 5:45 - 7:30pm
2) Grammar Lab Class Assistant - Fall Term
We're excited to be offering this NEW class at Literacy Source focusing on grammar. Students will practice sentence-level grammar for speaking and writing, focusing on control of simple, compound, and complex sentences.
- Friday Sept 5th - Friday Dec. 5th. Online, 6 – 8pm
3) Conversation Partners
Another new class this term is this Conversation Class:
Please email Caroline if you can help for NSR or are interested in the volunteer class opportunities.
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Literacy Source partnered with four individuals who became citizens this month, hailing from Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Nepal. Congratulations!
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Movies at the Mural: Wicked
Friday, August 22, 9pm (Seattle Center Mural Ampitheatre, FREE)
Experience FREE movies outdoors at Seattle Center each summer. Picnic on the gently sloping Mural Amphitheatre lawn, in front of a state-of-the-art 40-foot screen, with the Space Needle looming above. The series features popular movies, both classic and contemporary, appropriate for all-ages. Movies at the Mural is an outdoor cinema experience like no other!
Wicked is the final movie of Summer 2025: based on a popular book and musical, Elphaba, a young woman with green skin, navigates life at Shiz University and forms an unlikely friendship with the popular Galinda. Their bond deepens as they encounter the Wizard of Oz, leading to a series of events that ultimately shape their destinies and transform them into the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.
Nicholas Meyer with George Meyer: Sherlock Holmes and The Real Thing
Thursday, August 28, 7:30pm (The Wyncote NW Forum 1119 8th Ave, $10-35)
Whether or not you’re a Sherlockian, whether or not you believe that Arthur Conan Doyle was the literary agent for Holmes and Watson and not the author of fantastical tales, you might be curious to learn that there’s a new mysterious Sherlock Holmes tale to untangle. Author, screenwriter, and director Nicholas Meyer would like to share that tale in his book, Sherlock Holmes and The Real Thing.
Picture the setting: London, 189–. The great city is brought to a standstill by a series of blizzards, and Sherlock Holmes is bored to distraction. It would take a miracle to bring a case to the detective’s door. . . But next thing you know, there are several corpses—and Holmes and his biographer, John H. Watson, MD, find themselves drawn into one of the most bizarre cases of the great detective’s career: the cutthroat world of big Art, where trickery and deceit abound.
Like any good Sherlock Holmes story, there seem to be more questions than answers. What makes a work of art worth killing for? Is it the artist, his mistress, his dealer, or his blackmailer? Who are the perpetrators? The accomplices? The victims? And just who is Juliet Packwood, with whom Watson has become infatuated? Oh, and there’s one other problem: Is this a genuine Holmes case or a clever forgery? Is this the real thing? Nicholas Meyer spins a tale for new and seasoned Sherlockians alike.
Rainbow City Orchestra Concert
Sunday, August 24, 2-4pm (Seattle Public Library Level 1 Auditorium, FREE)
Rainbow City Orchestra's talented strings players will be performing classical arrangements of popular music from the 1970s, 1990s, and early 2000s.
About Rainbow City Orchestra:
Rainbow City Orchestra is one of the seven musical ensembles that make up Rainbow City Performing Arts, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing equity and visibility of LGBTQIA+ individuals. Through their performances, they aim to bring forward works that highlight diverse voices and composers, featuring music that evokes themes of hope and shines a light on their collective strength.
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Our next New Volunteer Orientation (via Zoom) will be on September 3 at either 1pm or 7pm.
Potential volunteers are invited to register online here.
| | Miss any of our past volunteer newsletters? You can access archived newsletters at the bottom of the Volunteer Page of our webpage. | | | | |
