NovemberNEWSLETTER | 2024

November is Native American Heritage Month, and a wealth of opportunities abound to celebrate the history, culture, and contributions of the original and thriving stewards of this land. You find out more about local ways to celebrate here!

In Community,

Cat Howell

Co-ED, Educational Director

Shira Rosen

Co-ED, Managing Director

All-Student Spotlight: 2024 Focus Group Feedback

"Literacy Source is a place to learn and make friends,

where has no discrimination, and you feel safe.”

In August, we asked our students about their experience with Literacy Source: what they needed from us, what we could do better, and what they've gained through this partnership.

In the past, we've used this feedback to inform our decisions around class offerings, such as maintaining hybrid classes post-pandemic and introducing new classes, such as our Walk in the Park class.

You can find out more about this project and what we learned here.

New Partnership with Seattle Housing Authority

Literacy Source has a new partnership with Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) to offer Basic Digital Skills training to its residents! This fall, LS began offering basic computer and digital skills instruction to classes located at three SHA sites within the High Point, New Holly and Rainier Vista neighborhoods. In addition to digital and computer skills instruction, it includes a contextualized module focused on students gaining access and an understanding of an SHA platform for residents to obtain a litany of services.

Literacy Source is also fortunate to have SHA's citywide team of Digital Navigators providing individualized and group support for our instructors. Classes are offered to both native and non-native English learners, are 9 weeks long and provide a laptop to students who complete. Our teams and SHA's resident are enthusiastic and hopeful about the prospect of continuing these classes into 2025!

Welcome, New Staff and Board Members!

Britt McCombs

ESOL Instructional Advisor

Britt began tutoring immigrant families when she was in high school. She later earned her MA in Teaching at Willamette University. She began volunteering in Adult Education in 2017 after teaching high school English for over a decade. At Literacy Source, Britt learned a lot as a teaching assistant in Kaeyoung Park's ESOL 2-3 class and is now excited to be teaching ESOL 4-5. Britt and her husband live in Seattle with two cats and two honeybee hives while their daughter attends the University of Victoria.

Tiffany Ban

Development and Communication Assistant

Tiffany was born and raised in Hawaii but followed her love of the mountains to Colorado where she studied Natural Resources Management. After moving to Seattle in 2006, she returned to school to get a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering and worked for several years at Seattle Public Utilities before deciding to switch directions and work for nonprofits. She served as the Associate Director and Operations Manager at two different nonprofits in the Methow Valley before arriving at Literacy Source...

Read more on our website!

New Board Members

We're excited to announce three new board members who joined our team in the past few months:

Daniel Dittrick (top) is on staff at the Dispute Resolution Center of King County, overseeing its learning program's trainings and educational offerings.

Neelam Saboo (middle) brings 25 years of experience in the tech sector, including leadership roles at PayPal, Amazon, and Expedia, to her role on the Literacy Source board.

Val Melikhova (bottom) is a Senior Research Analyst at ASU's Next Education Workforce initiative and has previously held data roles at KIPP Foundation and Relay Graduate School of Education.

You can find out more about them and their road to literacy source here.

Goodbye to Alex, our AmeriCorps VISTA!

This month we said goodbye to Alex Olsen, our AmeriCorps VISTA, as she has completed her year of service with us. VISTA members focus on capacity building and sustainable change with the organization. Alex did some amazing work this year helping us with a myriad of projects. Some key ones were cleaning up our donor database, organizing the office online filing system, getting the center library circulation up and running, and designing and implementing the bi-annual student survey.

Alex is staying on as staff for this term, facilitating one of the Conversation Classes. We will miss her around the office and wish her all the best in her future endeavors!

Advocacy Opportunity: Asylum Seeker Support

As we continue to manage a large influx of Asylum-seekers in Lake City, here is some information on the current and growing infrastructure and resources for migrants and Asylum-seekers in Washington, as well as opportunities to get involved and share information about the WA Migration and Asylum-Seeker Support (MASS) project.

We look forward to learning from and working with these partners to better support these individuals.

Ready to engage further with literacy Source?

To make a difference in the lives of others

To invest in something that makes a lasting impact

To have a strong and thriving workplace