Ruth Magar, a volunteer with Literacy Action Center, received the Utah Association of Adult, Community, and Continuing Education’s (UAACCE) Local Service Award during the UAACCE Board of Directors?November 2001 meeting at Southpoint in Sandy, Utah. This Service Award celebrated Ruth’s commitment as a volunteer tutor with Literacy Action Center. UAACCE recognizes one educator or administrator each month. Typically, these awards go to paid professionals. In November, the Service Award went to a volunteer.

Ruth was nominated for this honor by Eileen Smart, Director of Literacy Action Center, and Margaret Griffin, President of Literacy Action Center’s Board of Trustees.

Ruth has been a dedicated volunteer with Literacy Action Center for the past four years. Ruth has been tutoring the same gentleman, Nathan, since December 1997. When she first started working with Nathan, his letter knowledge was limited to the beginning letters of his names. He believed that he could spell his name, but close examination of the actual letters he wrote indicated that he could not. Through Ruth and Nathan’s perseverance and dedication, Nathan has begun to be a reader. For about the past two years, Nathan has been

Ruth does more for Literacy Action Center than just tutor. She has donated her time as a gift wrapper at Barnes & Noble during the holiday season. She has participated in the bi-monthly tutor talks, where she has searched for answers to her tutoring concerns and shared her ideas and inspirations with other tutors who might be struggling with similar issues. Ruth has also shared her knowledge and insights into working with a hard-to-teach adult learner as a guest panelist at Literacy Action Center’s tutor training workshops.

In all of this, Ruth has displayed incredible amounts of patience, perseverance, good humor, and faith. Ruth Magar is a wonderful example of a truly caring, wonderful tutor, who is definitely making a difference in someone’s life.