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sentence about purpose for home page
Teaching adults to read, write
and speak English since 1972.
Mission
Literacy Volunteers of
Massachusetts (LVM) promotes literacy skills that empower adults to realize
their goals.
LVM
Board of Directors
Literacy Volunteers of
Massachusetts is governed by an active Board of Directors involved in strategic
planning, fundraising, public awareness, and oversight of program and financial
matters.
The 2005-2006 members of the LVM
Board of Directors and their affiliations are:
OFFICERS
President
William
F. Connolly – The Boston Globe
Vice President
Robert
W. Hess – Brown Brothers Harriman & Company
MEMBERS
Lisa DeSisto – The
Boston Globe
Matthew Earley – Harvard Management Company
Beth-Anne Flynn – State Street Global
Advisors
Carol Lindsay – Boston Renaissance Charter School
Roberta Soolman – Literacy Volunteers of Massachusetts
LVM
Emeritus Board
LVM recognizes former LVM Board
members for exemplary service by inviting them to join the LVM Emeritus Board.
Gene Barton, Esquire – Choate, Hall & Stewart
Vashti Brotherhood – Warner Communications
Craig Cerretani – Longfellow Financial, LLP
Jacqueline P. Fields, Ph.D.
Donald E. Froude – Columbia Management Group
Katherine German, Ph.D. – Development Institute, Inc.
William Huff
Richard Kommit
Donald Mitchell – Mitchell and Company
Elizabeth St. Sauveur – Private Healthcare Systems
James Walter – Employee Services, Inc.
LVM
Benefactors Board
Former LVM Board members
committed to taking a leadership role in fundraising for LVM are invited to
join the LVM Benefactors Board.
Edward DeNoble – Harvard Management Company
Mario Marsano – Raymond James & Company
Thomas McNamara – Cypress Capital Partners
David Mittelman – Harvard Management Company
Gregory Shoukimas. M.D. – MetroWest MRI
Program
Awards and Recognition
·
University of Massachusetts at Amherst – Honorary Doctorate
LVM
Executive Director, Roberta Soolman, received an Honorary Doctorate in Humane
Letters from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in recognition of her
contributions to adult literacy (2004)
·
Massachusetts Literacy Foundation – Massachusetts Literacy Champion
LVA-Morrill
Memorial Library Coordinator in Norwood, Tina Blood, named as one of ten
Massachusetts Literacy Champions by the Massachusetts Literacy Foundation
sponsored by Verizon and the Herald Media (2003).
·
Ad Club of Greater Boston – Public Service Campaign Award Winner
LVM
selected as recipient of the Ad Club of Greater Boston’s Public Service
Campaign Award. The campaign was
subsequently honored for creative excellence in advertising, being granted two
prestigious Hatch Awards in the Public Service Print & Collateral category,
a Bronze Bowl for an individual print ad and Distinctive Merit for the entire
campaign (1999).
·
Catalogue of Philanthropy – First 100 Charities
LVM
was selected as one of the 100 charities included in the first issue of the
distinguished Catalogue of Philanthropy.
·
Massachusetts Coalition for Adult Education – Annual Awards
LVM
is the only adult education program in the state to receive two awards in a
single year: 1998:
Student of the Year and Volunteer of the Year; 1999:
Student of the Year and Special Recognition for LVM’s Executive
Director; 1992 and 1993: Volunteer of the Year
LVM
Staff
Roberta
Soolman – Executive Director
Roberta Soolman, Executive
Director of Literacy Volunteers of Massachusetts (LVM) since 1980, has led LVM
to its current status as the state’s leading and largest adult literacy
tutoring program. Working with the
LVM Board of Directors, Emeritus and Benefactors Boards as well as the staff
and leadership teams of the ten LVM program affiliates, she has successfully
overseen significant programmatic and financial growth in the organization.
Under her direction, all LVM program affiliates have demonstrated
excellence in non-profit management and instructional programming, successfully
obtaining national accreditation from ProLiteracy America/Literacy Volunteers
of America after participating in a rigorous accreditation process, the only
one of its kind in the nation for volunteer adult literacy programs.
Ms. Soolman has also provided
exemplary leadership in the area of adult education public policy in
Massachusetts. As co-chair of the
Massachusetts Coalition for Adult Education Public Policy Committee, she has
been instrumental in increasing public funding for adult basic education
sevenfold between 1995 and 2004. She
has been selected by the Massachusetts Department of Education and her adult
education peers for numerous statewide leadership positions in adult education,
including President of the Massachusetts Coalition for Adult Education for six
years, Treasurer of the Massachusetts Adult Basic Education Directors’ Council,
member of the Adult Education Committee established by the Education Reform Act
of 1993, and member of several statewide policy tasks forces.
She has most recently received an
Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst in recognition for her contributions to literacy in Massachusetts,
demonstrating
that “lofty idealism can be combined with – and gloriously served by – iron
resolve and canny political sense”.
She also has received numerous
awards in recognition of her leadership and exemplary service from the Boston
Jaycees, the Women’s National Book Association, the Massachusetts Coalition for
Adult Education, the New England Branch of the Orton Dyslexia Society and the
Massachusetts Association for Adult and Continuing Education.
She graduated magna cum laude
from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a B.A. in English.
Amy
Todeschini – LVM-Boston Coordinator
Amy Todeschini has
served as the Coordinator of LVM-Boston since September of 2002.
Coordinating all aspects of the basic literacy program, Ms. Todeschini
provides vital and consistent ongoing professional support for tutors and
students involved in the LVM-Boston program.
She is also involved in rigorous recruitment and orientation of new tutors and
students to promote the growth of the program.
Ms. Todeschini also
works in collaboration with other community agencies to aid in volunteer and
literacy efforts, particularly as a member of the Development Organization for
Volunteer Administrators (DOVA) and the Massachusetts Coalition for Adult
Education.
Amy Todeschini
joined LVM in May 2001, where she served as Executive Assistant assisting
the Executive Director and the Program Coordinators, organizing special events
and conferences, and developing and maintaining the administrative databases.
Prior to LVM, Amy was a Residential Counselor at the Temple Street YMCA
responsible for the coordinating community treatment providers and
professionals, creating and facilitating individual and group activities, and
performing crisis counseling as necessary.
She graduated with
a B.A. in Sociology from Wesleyan University.
Amy
Lenard – Project Lighthouse Coordinator
Amy Lenard joined
LVM in May 2003 as the Project Lighthouse Coordinator, coordinating all aspects
of the basic literacy and ESOL tutoring program for homeless adult students,
including managing partnerships with homeless shelters, recruiting students and
training ESOL tutors. In
collaboration with the LVM-Boston Coordinator, Amy also manages the recruitment
and orientation of new tutors.
Amy Lenard has six years experience providing ESOL instructional services to
adults. In addition to her work as the Project Lighthouse Coordinator,
Amy also trains adults who wish to obtain a Certificate in Teaching English as
a Foreign Language (CTEFL). Prior
to joining LVM, Amy taught English in Ghana, West Africa, and worked as an
adult ESOL teacher in Poughkeepsie, New York.
She has also worked as the Safety & Program Associate for Outward Bound USA
in Garrison, New York, providing safety-related support to wilderness education
schools and managing the J-1 visitor exchange program for foreign instructors
working in the United States. Amy
graduated from Skidmore College with a BA in Economics, and is proficient in
French and Spanish.
Claire
Palmer – Data Coordinator
Claire Palmer has served as the
LVM Data Coordinator since February 2001. During her tenure at LVM,
Claire has transformed LVM's statewide statistical database and data collection
processes to provide up-to-date information on all LVM volunteers
and students as well as monthly progress reports regarding attendance and
goals achieved.
She works closely with all LVM
affiliate programs to assure the accuracy of information and is currently
working on incorporating a new student re-assessment process into the data
collection.
Prior to joining LVM, Claire was
a Textbook Department Supervisor at the Harvard Cooperative Society and worked
for Mark Medical, using specialized software to diagnose biomedical disorders
of the foot. Fluent in Italian, Claire received her B.A. in Philosophy
from the University of California at Santa Cruz.