Once in a Generation Chance
By: Ginger Duiven, Executive Director

I am guessing that you’ve heard something about the building boom that is happening in Milwaukee. Currently, there are $7.2 billion dollars in construction projects planned or underway. Already employers are desperate for qualified workers and in our city there are thousands of adults on the employment sidelines. We have an imperative and the once-in-a-generation chance to fix this classic mismatch of supply and demand. There are opportunities being offered and there are opportunities needed, and we have plan for a new High School Equivalency Diploma program that will help connect people to these possibilities.

Thanks to an amazing $100,000 grant from a new philanthropy collaborative called Impact100 Greater Milwaukee, our work to create a timely, new competency-based high school equivalent diploma program can move forward. If you’re not familiar, competency-based learning is an approach where:

We're Busy Changing the World
By: Ginger Duiven, Executive Director

Wow, it’s been a while since we could make the time to put together a newsletter. I know it is important to stay in touch with all of you. Since I last wrote, we have done so much! This “mini” Syllabus is a quick read to catch you up on some of the big news here at LSW. We plan to put together the next full size Syllabus newsletter in early summer.

Some of you may remember when I wrote you last year about the $100,000 endowment fund challenge grant from the Rita Stevens family. They challenged us to raise $100,000 to earn another $100,000 in matching funds to celebrate our 50th Anniversary. Well guess what? WE DID IT! As the deadline approached in late December, we received the last $15,000 we needed to succeed! Thank you to all of the 53 donors who contributed to the first addition to our endowment fund in a dozen years or more. LSW is in a stronger position as we start our next 50 years.

So what else have we been up to?

Persistence 

By: Julie Clark, Director of English Language Learning

I am often amazed by the students who come to Literacy Services. I’m struck by a variety of qualities: dedication, humility, humor, curiosity. Mostly, I’m struck by how hard they work. The successful students make gains, increase their literacy levels, and achieve all kinds of accomplishments. When things get challenging, those students work harder. When things get difficult, they work harder. They try harder. A quality they possess is persistence. Persistence enables them to keep trying, even when they are not successful. When they fail, persistence makes them try again. The student that I chose to write about for this issue of the newsletter has shown more persistence than anyone I have ever met in my life. I’d like to share her story, but I need to give a little background information first.

Some of the students who come to our English Language Learning program ask for help in preparing for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) test. The TOEFL is a challenging exam for international students who want to enter a university in the United States. Students are tested in reading and comprehension, in writing, in speaking and in listening. They have to prove through the TOEFL test that they have the English skills necessary to manage university level classes. It’s a tough exam.

Myunghee shares her personal experience
at our 2015 3rd Quarter Awards Celebration

The student I’m writing about, Myunghee Jun, knows success, but she also knows failure. She has tried for years to pass the TOEFL test. Her first attempts occurred long before she found Literacy Services. Myunghee Jun is not only a registered nurse in her home country of South Korea, she has a doctorate in nursing and has taught at the university level there for several years. When she came to the United States, she took the TOEFL test and failed. She studied some more and tried again. She failed it again. She kept trying, and she kept testing, and she kept failing. She took the TOEFL test nine times.

At the end of last September, Myunghee walked into our classroom and told us she passed the TOEFL test on her tenth attempt. Then she told me how grateful she was to Literacy Services. She told me, person by person, how each of her tutors had helped her, how each one very specifically worked in different ways with her to approach that test. She told me what we did for her.

I’m going to tell you what she does for us. Myunghee inspires us: her tenacity, her persistence, her hope. She gives hope to all of us. She keeps us going. I am very honored that I have been able to witness her success. Moreover, I’m grateful that I can be inspired by someone who has such incredible strength and persistence.