LIVE from The Travelers Championship: Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford

Steve Morris, Executive Director of Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford, joins us live from the Travelers Championship. He shares how the Hartford-based nonprofit is changing lives by helping adults improve their literacy skills and build confidence through education, job training, and community support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Him Allison Demurz here at the Travelers Championship in Cromwell.
My guest this morning is Steve Morris. He is executive
director of Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford. Good morning morning, Alison.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
My pleasure. For people who don't know about what you
do and who you are, tell us all about it.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Sure. So, Literacy Volunteers are Great Hartford. We are a
Hertford based nonprofit and our goal is to change lives
through literacy. So everybody that comes to us is we
work with adults eighteen and over and people are working
on literacy skills, so whether that may be learning English,
whether it may be someone who's a native English speaker
but working on their reading and writing. Beyond that, we
do help for citizenship, We do job training, we do

(00:39):
a little bit, we do ged prep, we do a
little bit of everything. So it's just a lot of
fun and as our name alludes to, we use a
lot of volunteers, so there's a lot of opportunities to
get involved and it's a great organization.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
So can people go to your website lvgh dot org
to find out how they can take advantage of all
these programs and services exactly that.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
So if you're looking for to receive our services as
a student, you can definitely go to our website and
same if you'd like to volunteer with us, you can
also utilize our website for volunteer opportunities.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Tell me the kinds of impact it's hat on people,
I'm sure it's extremely positive.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Oh of course, yees. So I mean, unfortunately, in Connecticut,
a greater Heartford specifically, about nineteen percent of adults are
reading at or below the second grade level, which it
translates to into the hundreds of thousands of people. And
so when you think about your own life, for anybody
listening out there, you know how important literacy has been
in your life. You almost take it for granted that
you can read street signs and you can fill out

(01:30):
applications and all those different things. So you know, you
have to imagine when someone can't do those things, how
dependent you typically have to be on other people to
help you, especially as an adult. So our job is
to help kind of build that self sufficiency, that confidence,
And to your point about impact, to your question about impact,
it's a beautiful thing to see someone start and maybe
they're very just upset that as an adult they're struggling

(01:51):
with reading and writing and you know, now they now
they can you know, buy a home or apply for jobs,
or advocate for their children, or help their children with
their homework. And so there's lots of stories I could
tell me. I'm thinking about one where one of our
students is actually was born and raising in the United States,
has a high school diploma, joined the United States Navy,
served honorably for eight years, and then was sent to

(02:13):
US by the VA as someone who is functionally illiterate.
And so he's been in our programs for some time
now and he's made a lot of progress. And so
that's just one example of the hundreds of students each year.
We probably work with six hundred or more students across
the region. So it's just a lot of fun and
there's a lot of impact, and it's yeah for volunteers
or even for myself it works there. It's a really
nice community to be a part of.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Oh, you can totally see it on your face, big
old smile. It's a blessing to work there, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Oh, it is, it is. And I will say a
shout out to you know Bardies for Charity and Webster Bank.
We've been doing this for many years now, and it's
just a wonderful opportunity for us to not only chat
with yourself and kind of tell our story, but also
to help raise some money in Webster Bank with the
with the bonus dollars, just it makes it all really
worth it. So we're happy to be here and happy
for the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yes, please donate to Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford. You
could go to LVG dot org or you can go
to Travelers Championship dot com. For every dollar they raise,
Webster Bank is going to give them fifteen cents again.
Go to that website so you can find out how
you can volunteer, how you can sponsorship, how you can
find out oout all of their programs and services. I'm

(03:16):
speaking with Steve Morris, executive director of Literacy Volunteers of
Greater Hartford. Thank you so much for being here today
and for serving the community.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
It was a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me