Literacy Volunteers of Rensselaer County’s longtime volunteer, Mary Krenceski, has been named Adult Educator of the Year by the New York Association for Continuing and Community Education (NYACCE). The award was handed out at the NYACCE Conference at the Marriott Hotel on Wolf Road in Albany, N.Y. on April 20, 2023.

Mary has been tireless in her efforts to instruct and advocate for both English language learners and basic literacy learners since she joined Literacy Volunteers of Rensselaer County (LVORC) as a volunteer tutor in 2001. According to LVORC’s Executive Director, Nancy Benz, “Mary is a treasure! She always gives 100 percent, whether she’s instructing English language learners in the workplace literacy program hosted by Blasch Precision Ceramics, leading the financial literacy program at the YWCA, or tutoring her individual basic literacy student.”

Mary is also an indispensable member of LVORC’s corps of volunteer tutor trainers, providing in-person and online training to new tutors. She can be seen modeling BLL group instruction as part of Literacy New York’s Intake to Outcomes (I2O) online training. Mary has a particular skill for translating her many years of lived experience as a tutor and group instructor into solid practical guidance for volunteers.

When Mary isn’t tutoring or training, she’s conducting intake interviews with students, and testing in TABE and BEST Plus. Most recently she has been helping to establish LVORC’s program for English language learners at the Refugee Welcome Center and at New Hope Church in Albany, N.Y.

To read more about Mary, check out the ProLiteracy blog: https://www.proliteracy.org/Blogs/Article/890/English-Language-Tutor-Gives-Employees-the-Tools-to-Succeed-at-Work