Literacy Volunteers of America-Prince William Awards Night

Literacy Volunteers of America-Prince William held its Annual Ice Cream Social and Awards Night on September 18, 2014 at the Hillendale Fire Hall in Dale City that generously donated space for the event. The program has been serving adults in the Prince William County area for 23 years, helping them achieve life goals through increased literacy skills. All of the over 200 tutors are volunteers, giving of their time and talents to help others. With the help of these dedicated tutors and others who volunteer in other capacities, the program assisted over 650 adults last year. The program includes 1:1 tutoring as well as classes for Citizenship, GED preparation, computer literacy skills, and English as a Second Language (ESL) skills.

Over 150 people attended the September 18 event, including students, community supporters, tutors, other volunteers, friends and guests. They celebrated the hard work and achievements of everyone in the program. After a social hour, there were inspiring talks by the Board President, Ken Ikeda, Executive Director, Dr. Vicki Gross, and three students: Abdul Mohammed, Diana Deleon, and Mohsanah Hajigurban. The students shared how the Literacy Volunteers of America-Prince William program has helped them achieve milestones in their lives and encouraged everyone in attendance to continue to strive for their dreams and goals. Following the talks, seven 5 years of service awards were given out to Doug Eagles, Jean Thompson, Don Scarr, Christine Rosen, Jim Heller, Janet Mouw and Roberta Knussman. Special awards as Students of the Year went to Rut Amdemeskal and Iftikhar Haq. Davine Irving and Linda Mazzucchi received awards as our Tutors of the Year and Ernestine Jenkins, an LVA-PW board member and driving force in the community was honored as LVA-PW’s Volunteer of the Year for 2014. These individuals were also honored by having their names along with the LVA-PW program listed in the Congressional Record thanks to Congressman Gerald Connolly. Everyone who attended left the event with a sense of pride, increased motivation and inspiration.

More information is available on the Literacy Volunteers of America-Prince William website at www.lvapw.org . Those adults seeking help with basic literacy skills and classes as well as those interested in becoming volunteer tutors should contact the office at 703-670-5702 or via email at lvapw@aol.com