John

I have worked with Free to Succeed for about five years now. I worked as a teacher and administrator for the Solano County (3 years) and Marin County (23 years) Superintendents for 26 years, and as a resource specialist at Drake High School in the Tamalpais Union High School District for 10 years. When I retired I heard about Free to Succeed from my neighbor and long-time volunteer, Joe Spinelli. It is thrilling to see the men we work with get excited about learning at whatever level they are, from beginning readers to GED preparation to college course work. I think seeing one student, Mike S., persevere on the math section of the GED until he passed on the sixth try was one of the moments that made me feel that we are helping people accomplish things they thought they never could. And all of us volunteers can take credit for Michael L. going from non-reader to reading at a mid-elementary level; he now is learning not just to read, but to learn about the world from the books he can now access. Ask him about how Braille was invented or how the Wright Brothers conquered the dilemma of how to fly, and you will hear the excitement in his answer, because he learned it from reading it himself, thanks to years of patience by many Free to Succeed volunteers.