Board Member Spotlight: Patrick Ford

Patrick Ford joined the Literacy NRV Board of Directors in 2023 and has been an invaluable addition to the organization. We asked Patrick to share some highlights from his time at LNRV so far and here's what he had to say:

Tell us about a favorite/memorable/impactful LNRV volunteering moment.

In my early days as a board member, I was also a reporter for the Southwest Times. I was working on a series about literacy and I did a story about English language students taking classes focused on healthcare terms and vocabulary. What struck me was one of the participant's motivations. 

We know that life is easier in the United States knowing English, but she said her determination in improving her skills was to be a better mother for her children. She wanted to be able to speak with their teachers and their doctors and that brought her back to the class week after week. 

How has serving LNRV impacted other parts of your life?

We often take literacy for granted. Myself, and I’m sure others, forget that these skills require practice and to be taught. Before joining I always saw Literacy NRV as the folks that teach ESL classes. But as I got involved I realized how many other literacy skills I had taken for granted. Health, technology, financial literacy: these all are required to succeed in this world, and no one is born with them. 

Seeing the work done by Literacy NRV has shown me how hard people are willing to work for these skills, and how dedicated our community volunteers are to teach them. 

What successes have you seen during your time with LNRV?

Everything we do is a success as long as at least one person walks away better than they came. Literacy is the foundation of culture and history, and as long as we are adding at least one person to the list of us who can record it, we are succeeding in preserving humanities, culture, and history.