Ruth Johnson Colvin, founder of Literacy Volunteers, which "became one of the world's largest organizations of volunteers tutoring basic language skills to functionally illiterate peoples in America and other lands, opening doors to citizenship and better lives," died August 18, the New York Times reported. She was 107.
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| Ruth Johnson Colvin in 2006 | |
In 1961, Colvin discovered that the recent census had counted 11,055 residents of Onondaga County, N.Y., who could not read or write. Although she had no experience teaching, she felt that something had to be done about it. The Times wrote that a year later, "after consulting reading specialists and service agencies, she opened an office in her basement, began recruiting volunteers from churches to be tutors, wrote training manuals, and set up a small group to reach out to residents, many of them immigrants, to teach them basic English, offering pathways to jobs, education and rising standards of living."
In 1967, Literacy Volunteers was chartered by New York State as a nonprofit, with 77 tutors, 100 students, and Colvin as its first president. Over the following decades, the organization won federal and private grants, created programs in many states, won national recognition, and changed its name to Literacy Volunteers of America.
After a 2002 merger with Laubach Literacy International, the organization became ProLiteracy, with hundreds of programs and 100,000 tutors in 42 states and 60 countries, offering lessons in scores of languages at homes, workplaces, prisons, and other sites. For 60 years, Colvin remained a teacher and administrator, traveled widely, and wrote 12 books on her work. She also helped found the National Coalition for Literacy to raise public awareness of the country's illiteracy problems.
She received the President's Volunteer Service Award from President Ronald Reagan in 1987, was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993, and received the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President George W. Bush in a 2006.
"Ruth Colvin is a person of intelligence and vision and heart," Bush said in making the presentation. "And she has earned the gratitude of many and the admiration of us all."
During her career, Colvin became an international administrator, trainer of tutors, and teacher in ProLiteracy Worldwide. She and her husband established literacy programs in schools for adults, libraries, prisons, and industries. She also wrote Great Traveling After 55 (1989) and Off the Beaten Path: Stories of People Around the World (2011). In recent years, she developed literacy programs in Madagascar, New Guinea, Zambia, Guatemala, Pakistan, Somalia, and China. Her last book was My Travels Through Life, Love and Literacy: A Journey Over 100 Years in the Making (2020).
Still working in 2019 at the age of 102, Colvin was honored by the New York State Senate as a pioneering champion of literacy. Senator Rachel May, chairwoman of the Committee on Aging, said, "Ruth Colvin reminds us all by her example of the profound positive impact one person can have on the lives of others."