May | VOLUNTEER NEWSLETTER | 2025

May is Mental Health Month—a vital reminder of the importance of emotional well-being, especially in today’s fast-paced, uncertain world. This year's theme is "turn awareness into action". You can find more details on how to do that here.

We hope this message finds you well and enjoying the longer days and signs of summer just around the corner. As we move into the final weeks of spring term, we’re filled with gratitude—for our students’ progress, our dedicated staff, and for YOU, our incredible volunteers. Your energy and commitment continue to sustain our work in powerful ways.

As many of you know, recent cuts to AmeriCorps funding by the current administration have posed significant challenges for programs like ours. Thanks to the immediate and generous response from our community—including so many of you—we were able to secure short-term support to keep our AmeriCorps members, Wing-Sea and Darlene, with us through the end of the term. Their Citizenship and Computer classes will continue as planned. Unfortunately, unless circumstances change, we will not have AmeriCorps members next year. We are actively exploring sustainable paths forward to continue providing the vital services our students need.

Thank you for showing up—and for bringing friends and energy to the recent fundraising luncheon. It is such a powerful time for our community to come together, and your presence helps amplify our mission and the voices of our learners. Fifty of you attended, and every one of you plays a part in raising awareness about the power of adult education and the experiences of immigrants and refugees. As we write our next chapter as an organization, we want to remind you that we simply couldn’t do this work without you.

We’re now mid-term, and classes are running smoothly. Alongside our regularly scheduled programming, we’ve launched new offerings like Culinary Math (in partnership with Pacific Northwest Hospitality Training Program), and brought back the Democracy Voucher program. We’re also excited that the New Holly Branch Library Conversation Class has now transitioned to in-person sessions in Rainier Valley. In response to your feedback, we’re adding a News & Updates section to the V-News to help keep you better informed (see below). And in great news—two more learners have earned childcare certificates so far this year, adding to eight in 2024 and four in 2023. Every milestone is a reminder of the real impact we’re making together.

In community,

Liz Wurster

Communications Coordinator

As we marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War on April 30, 2025, we take a moment to honor not only those who served but also those whose voices helped bring the conflict to a close. Known in Vietnam as Reunification Day, this historic milestone reminds us of the strength of collective action. Across the United States, widespread protest movements—led by students, veterans, and everyday citizens—played a pivotal role in shifting public sentiment and demanding an end to a war that had divided a nation. The courage of those voices, raised in unity and defiance, reminds us that democracy is shaped not only by ballots, but by bold speech and shared resistance.

Today, as we confront policies that threaten immigrants’ rights and deepen social inequities, we have the opportunity to again raise our voices. Many of our learners—immigrants, refugees, and members of marginalized communities—face barriers rooted in systems that silence rather than support. Just as people once stood against injustice during the Vietnam War, we too must stand together to challenge policies that undermine human dignity. In classrooms and communities alike, our voices matter. Our power lies not in silence, but in the courage to speak up—for equity, for inclusion, and for change. Let us honor the past by continuing the fight for justice today.

Join us on May 31 from 4-7 PM in our new space for an Open House Celebration. Drop in any time to enjoy light refreshments and engage activities changing every 30 minutes. Hear from our staff, students, and volunteers as we celebrate new citizens, learn new dances, and tour our new space.  

Our Executive Directors will be speaking at 4:30 PM and 6:30 PM.

When: May 30, 2025, 4-7 PM 

Where: Literacy Source 12360 Lake City Way NE Suite 301. We’re located on the 3rd floor of the Akin Building.

Register to let us know you’re coming. 

We look forward to seeing you there!

Volunteer Job References

We love that your volunteer experience is something you want to add to your resume and sometimes use as a reference for applying for jobs. However, we get a lot of requests for references and we have a limited capacity so we are only able to provide short references that verify the role and the number of hours you donated with us.

Entrance Keypad

A reminder that to enter the building, if the security guard is not there to let you in, you need to use the phone keypad at the parking lot entrance to be let in. There is no phone key pad at the Lake City Way entrance. Please see the directions for using the phone key pad in this document.

Center To-Do List

We still have a few handyman tasks to get us ready for the Open House, can you help? Please email Caroline

Creating an Inclusive Environment for Neurodiverse Learners

“The idea of neurodiversity helps us move past disability labels and understand a diversity of human

experiences—like learning to make pancakes in different ways.”

~(Takacs, 2023)

Working with adult learners is a challenge by itself. Working with neurodiverse adult learners doubles the

challenge. How do we navigate the learning process and create a more accessible environment to support these students? In today’s Teaching Tip, I would like to discuss two main tools that prove to be helpful:Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and individual accommodations.Universal Design ensures that curriculum and instruction meet diverse learning needs. Accommodations, on the other hand, address very specific individual needs...

Elena Jounina, ABE/GED Instructional Advisor

You can read Elenta's full teaching tip here.

New Student Registration



We are excited to welcome new students for our upcoming summer class registration and we need help welcoming them and helping them find our entrance and get into the building. If you can help for any or part of these shifts, please let us know:



• Monday 6/16: 10:45am-12:15pm
• Monday 6/16: 4:45-5:45pm
• Tuesday 6/17 8:45-10:15am

Please email Caroline if you can help.

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.

• Elsa Steele – Library Support
• Nina Conrad – Conversation Class Facilitator

Literacy Source partnered with one individual who became a citizen in the past month. Sara Ali, hailing from Ethiopia, celebrated her naturalization at the Ballard Locks ceremony on May 8th.

Congratulations, Sara!

Brother's Keeper

Staff: Shira Rosen

The Poet and the Silk Girl

Staff: Megan Dalton

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Staff: Allie Azersky

Breadfruit

Staff: Katherine VanHenley

A Fine Balance

Staff: Liz Wurster

Building Tradition: Pan-Asian Seattle and Life in the Residential Hotels

Staff: Laura Kalmanson

AAPI Month Film Screening: ASOG (2023)

Tuesday, May 27 · 6 - 8pm (Shoreline Community College, FREE)

“Asog” is a touching tale of survival, resistance, and solidarity, as told by the real-life victims of the Super Typhoon Yolanda that devastated the Philippines in 2013. An award-winning film that premiered in 2023, the film follows the unlikely friendship between Jaya and Arnel, as they find their way to Sicogon together.

Since its premiere in 2023, it has made its way across the global film festival circuit, winning over 10 international jury prizes. The attention it received created enough pressure on to spark negotiations for reparations to rebuild the stolen lands and homes of the residents of Sicogon.

“Flipping the conventions of the road movie on its head, Asog is a stunning and profound ode to the power of solidarity amidst struggle. This one-of-a-kind film plays with the line between narrative and documentary to become something entirely new. Co-writer and director Seán Devlin has crafted a monument of trans cinema.”

~Tribeca Film Festival

Food and drinks will be provided after the screening, and will take place in the 1600 Building (Theatre).

Ocean Vuong with Thanh Tân

Sunday, June 1 Time: 7:30 pm (The Great Hall 1119 Eighth Avenue, $7-$149)

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong’s writing—formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness—are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

Uncovering the History of Seattle’s Central Waterfront

First Thursday of every Month, 5:30-6:30pm (Occidental Park, FREE limited tickets)

Join historian Jennifer Ott as she tells the stories of piers and people, ships and railroads, and Seattle's ever‑evolving landscapes. Family‑friendly!

Our next New Volunteer Orientation (via Zoom) will be on June 4 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 Resources of our webpage.