Our Volunteers of the Year
2009 Volunteer of the Year: Michelle Lua
About myself
I'm a native Californian. I went to college at Gonzaga University in Spokane Washington where I majored in French and minored in English. I also got my teaching credential.
I spent a year with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps teaching English to Junior and Senior High School students at an Eskimo boarding school in St. Mary's Alaska. Although I loved the teaching, I did not love the isolation of bush Alaska.
When I returned from Alaska I was unable to find a teaching position, so I substituted for a year in the Sacramento area. I was still unable to find a teaching position, so I took a job with the Internal Revenue Service where I was a manager for 27 years. I retired after 30 years with the Federal government in March 2005. Since then I have been substitute teaching in Rohnert Park, doing quite a bit with my Church and have found a niche "playing with words" for e-spindle.
Why did I start to volunteer for eSpindle?
I love language. I majored in French and English. I have been a voracious reader since ... forever. When I was young I could lose myself in the dictionary moving from word to word untangling a puzzle. Now I feel like it's my job to do this. What more could I ask?
I love looking at a new word - and these are almost all new words to me. Then, I guess how it's pronounced and what it means on the basis of 2 years of grade school Spanish, 2 years of high school Latin, 3 years of high school French, 1 year of high school Italian, 4 years of college French and 16 years of English instruction.
Sometimes, I'm right. I'm always thrilled. I'm always learning.
I'm happy to be able to contribute to what I feel is a worthwhile enterprise. Language is important. It's the way that we communicate. Words are what we use to express ideas. How successful we are at expressing these ideas is almost completely dependent on the effectiveness of the way we put our words together. The bigger the vocabulary that an individual is able to use, the more successful she will be in expressing her ideas with not just clarity and precision, but also with subtlety and nuance.
2010 Volunteer of the Year: Alana Farr
I found eSpindle looking for a virtual volunteering opportunity that I could dedicate my extra time to. I kept volunteering because I respected the program's goal and the volunteering I did was really interesting and fun!
I loved organizing pictures for databases of different words - I was able to utilize beautiful photographs from around the world in order to help users have a visual representation of the words they are learning.
My english teacher once told me "language is the prehensile thumb of the brain" and I believe it. I've always loved writing and learning new words. This program was especially interesting to me because of its dedication to broadening the vocabulary of all its users and in doing so, providing users with better communication skills.
Thank you for the amazing and FUN opportunity to help!