Board member – Ariela!

Fox Valley Literacy’s board of directors is in charge of major planning and key decisions for our organization’s future. Our board members are individuals in our community who are passionate about Fox Valley Literacy’s vision and mission. Each board member is eager to serve our community and has a distinct motivation that is connected to literacy in some way.

Ariela joined the board of directors in 2020. She is a grant writer at Lawrence University, where she works with faculty and staff to get funds from foundations to support different programs and institutional goals. For Ariela, her motivation to serve as a board member was her grandmother. “My grandmother was from Costa Rica; she crossed the border at a very young age. She came to this country with a sixth-grade education and speaking no English”, she shared. Her grandmother was a strong woman. She continued her education and earned a master’s degree in social work, which enabled her to help numerous children and families. Ariela says that her grandmother needed literacy to develop communication and negotiation skills, and without them, she wouldn’t have gotten as far as she did. Although she came to this country with a 6th-grade education, speaking no English, she was able to further her education and get her master’s in social work. “I understand literacy on a personal level.  I could never achieve what I achieved if I hadn’t had my family before me work hard every day to succeed, so now everything is easier for me compared to what they went through.” Ariela wanted to continue her grandmother’s legacy, and Fox Valley Literacy fits just right. “This is an organization where we help people in the community build tools and literacy skills now so that when they have grandchildren they don’t have to work so hard because their grandparents did it for them.”

As a woman, Ariela believes that education goes beyond the things you learn from the books, the tests that you do, and the grades that you get.“Women’s education in my experience is also learning how to navigate a space to still get what you want even though people are already discounting your ideas and you just because of who you are” she shares. 

Ariela tells us that she enjoys being a board member at Fox Valley Literacy because “we support adults as a whole person, not just with their literacy skills. We pay attention to their stories, recognize what they need, and consider how we might be of more help to them. We are empowering women by giving them something that cannot be taken away from them.”