Married with two teenage daughters, Val taught high school for 6 years and served on the Provincial Day Care Advisory Committee. She is presently the coordinator of the Coaldale Meals on Wheels Program and the treasurer of the Progressive Conservative Women's Association for Southern Alberta. Even with all her past experience and involvement in various organizations Val is very grateful for the encouragement and training she receives through R2P2. "As much as we are nurturing the students and tutors in our programs," Val said compassionately, "we need to be nurtured, too. We can only do that by caring for each other as literacy workers. We need support, too. Getting together with the other coordinators in the region really kept me going when I was first getting started. I figured, 'If they could do it, I could do it.' And I recognized that their support was just as important (sometimes more important) than the training I received at the regional workshops."

I noticed that many of Val's interests have been politically oriented. I asked her if she had any thoughts about why literacy workers seem reluctant to get politically active about the issue of illiteracy. "I'm sure the main reason is because people are afraid that if they become too vocal about their concerns they might lose their jobs. I understand that fear; you don't want to bite the hand that feeds you but I don't think we have the right to complain if we haven't taken part in working for change. But getting involved and working for change takes time, time that many feel is better spent working with students and tutors."

"Sometimes I find myself walking on eggshells when I talk about my program in the community. Many people don't want to hear that there are students who have come out of the school system who are poor readers. They want to blame someone. I don't think we should be concerned about who we should blame. Rather than doing that we should be working together towards solving the problem. That's the only way we'll be able to make any changes. We shouldn't have to fed we have to do it all ourselves just because we're the ones working in adult literacy."

I wanted to let Val get back to work on the Conference so we decided to call it a day. With all her community involvements I (tongue in cheek) asked Val what she does in her "spare" time. "I'm ashamed to tell you this," she said, almost unable to get the words out, "but working as a literacy coordinator I don't have any spare time and even worse, I find I have less and less time to read!"

The next morning I left Lethbridge and headed west on Highway #3. As the sun rose it gently touched the tops of the grain elevators in each of the small towns I passed. After about an hour I could see the snow-capped tips of the Rocky Mountains on the horizon.

I passed a sign indicating a left turn to Pincher Creek, a community which serves a population of about 7000 people. I turned off Highway #3 and drove south down a sloping hill, over a little bridge that crosses the town's namesake to the main intersection of Pincher Creek. I followed the directions KATHY DAY had given me and found Mathew Halton Community School without difficulty.

Margot had given me some posters to return to Kathy. As I carried them to the school door the wind caught them and blew them out of my hands. Kathy saw me struggling with the posters from her office window and was by my side in seconds. We have known each other for 5 years and once inside the school doors, laughed at yet another time we've appreciated each other's help.