Literacy Volunteers of Illinois

Your summer can change lives — including your own. 🌟

Join LVI AmeriCorps’ 2026 Summer of Service:
📚 Empower literacy
🤝 Build community volunteer capacity
💙 Serve where you’re needed most

✨ June 1 – August 31, 2026
✨ 25–35 hours/week
✨ $571.42 paid biweekly, plus $200 for completion of AmeriCorps Service
✨ $1,565.08 Segal Education Award

Interested?
📩 Contact Rhianna Brandt by EOD 5/25/26
[email protected]

📣 The May issue of the LVI VOCAL Newsletter just dropped!

Inside this month’s edition:
✨ Community stories
✨ Program updates
✨ Opportunities to engage
✨ Voices making an impact through service

If you care about leadership, community, and creating change that lasts — this is for you.

📬 Read the latest issue here: https://mailchi.mp/lvillinois/lvi-vocal-may-newsletter-6428267

📚 Want to catch up on past editions?
Browse previous LVI VOCAL newsletters here: https://lvillinois.org/newsletter/

The work matters.
The voices matter.
And this community deserves to be heard. 🧡

Today, we celebrate every mother, grandmother, caregiver, and mother figure whose love changes lives in ways both big and small. 💐

This Mother’s Day, we honor the strength, sacrifice, wisdom, and care that help generations grow and thrive.

Happy Mother’s Day to all who nurture, teach, and inspire. 🌷

To our Literacy Volunteers of Illinois AmeriCorps members: thank you!

Your energy, care, and commitment powered the 32nd Annual from start to finish.

We’re proud. We’re grateful. And we’re better because you serve. 🌟🧡

Gratitude, where it’s due. 💛

At the On the Road to Literacy Conference, the learning didn’t just happen in rounds—it happened at every table, every conversation, every connection made.

To our incredible exhibitors and tablers: thank you.

Thank you for showing up with resources that matter.

With tools educators can actually use.
With knowledge that meets adult learners where they are.

Because of you, adult educators, volunteer tutors, and learners didn’t just leave inspired—they left ready.

Ready to teach.
Ready to support.
Ready to change lives through literacy.

At Literacy Volunteers of Illinois, we know this work takes all of us.
And you showed exactly what’s possible when we come together.

We’re so grateful to be in this work with you. Illinois Community College Board

How can you thank a group of people who came out on a Saturday morning for a conference geared towards volunteer tutors, adult educators, and adult learners? It will take several posts, and we hope that those connected to the adult literacy community will share their thoughts and experiences, or maybe even tag someone you know who made a difference.
Let me start with our presenters...Grateful to be in community with such a dedicated group of leaders and partners in adult literacy: Kat and Alexis with the Chicago Public Library; Sharon Brauer of Literacy DuPage; Bria Dolnick, Sarah Glazer, Jane Rothschild, and Keighty Ward from Literacy Works; Joanne Telser-Frere, Karen Fredrickson, and Margaret Goldstein with Literacy Chicago; Kimberly Hansel, Ed.D. of The Greater West Town Community Project; Erika Husby from Rohingya Culture Center; Elizabeth Johnston of YWCA Northwestern Illinois; Galina Khartulari with Joliet Junior College; Ebony Mason of City Colleges of Chicago-Kennedy-King City Colleges of Chicago; Michael Matos from Scale LIT; Gabriel Perez with Central States SER; Danielle Porter of Literacy Volunteers of Illinois; Jenny Siegfried from Adult Learning Resource Center; Paul Thomas with Trellus; and Jeremy Mathew and Cholpon Tuzabaeva of Jane Addams Resource Center JARC Training.

📸👀 Thank you for being with us at the 32nd Annual On the Road to Literacy Conference.

✨ See familiar faces, favorite moments, and everything that made the day special. 👉View our gallery: https://ontheroadtoliteracyconference.com/about/photos/

State Rep Theresa Mah
Literacy Volunteers of Illinois

📸👀 Thank you for being with us at the 32nd Annual On the Road to Literacy Conference.

✨ See familiar faces, favorite moments, and everything that made the day special. 👉View our gallery: https://ontheroadtoliteracyconference.com/about/photos/

State Rep Theresa Mah
Literacy Volunteers of Illinois

Thank you for being part of our literacy journey. 🙏

We appreciate everyone who made this year’s On the Road to Literacy Conference possible: our planning committee, presenters, exhibitors, volunteer tutors, adult educators, adult learners, and literacy partners.

Because of you, we shared ideas, strengthened connections, celebrated outstanding tutors and learners, and spent a meaningful day of learning together. Every conversation, workshop, and moment of encouragement helps move literacy forward.

We’re grateful for the care, time, and commitment you bring to adult learning—mile after mile.

Literacy Volunteers of Illinois (LVI) has supported volunteer literacy programs statewide since 1979, empowering families, adults, and out-of-school teens through training, resources, and community connection.

💡 Presenter Spotlight: Level Up Your Social Media Game, Presented by Jenny Siegfried

Are you responsible for your program’s social media?

In this session, we’ll review basic marketing strategies and explore ways to make your social media messages more effective. We’ll also look at how to leverage AI to brainstorm messages that resonate with your audience.

About the Presenter
Jenny is a Professional Development Specialist at The Center: Resources for Teaching & Learning in Arlington Heights. She develops and presents training for adult education practitioners across Illinois. She also manages the Illinois Adult Education Hotline, which helps connect potential students and volunteers to literacy programs across the state.

Join us for a day of learning, connection, and practical strategies for supporting adult learners.

🗓 Saturday, April 18, 2026
⏰ 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM
📍 1900 W. Jackson Blvd. Chicago, IL 60612
💳 $25 for tutors and literacy staff, $20 for adult learners and AmeriCorps members
🍎 Registration includes breakfast snacks, a boxed lunch, and conference materials. *vegan and vegetarian options

🔗 Register: https://ontheroadtoliteracyconference.com/register

On the Road to Literacy is a day-long conference for volunteer tutors, adult educators, and adult learners.

Nearly twenty workshops explore strategies, techniques, and materials for vocabulary, pronunciation, conversation, comprehension, reading, writing, handwriting, and computational skills in or out of tutoring sessions or classes.

At Literacy Volunteers of Illinois (LVI), we’re on a mission to transform lives through literacy. Since our founding in 1979, we’ve supported volunteer literacy programs statewide, empowering families, adults, and out-of-school teens to enhance their literacy skills.

Join us, together with volunteer tutors, adult educators, adult learners, AmeriCorps members, and literacy program staff, for a day of learning, connection, and recognition.

Visit ontheroadtoliteracyconference.com to learn more.

Three powerful ways you can support adult literacy:
✍️ Register
💬 Tag our Presenter in the comments
🔁 Share our posts