Wenda is very dedicated to her staff. Most of the people she has on staff now were previously tutors with the program. She recognized their strengths then found innovative ways to bring them on staff, mostly through specially funded government programs. To help with staff budgets Wenda has recently begun to charge students a minimal tuition fee which works out to a cost of no more than $1.00 per instructional hour for the students. The fee is waived however if the student is clearly unable to afford the expense.

Just before lunch Wenda drove me over to the main campus of Grande Prairie Regional College. The College, designed by world famous Alberta architect Douglas Cardinal, is an unique circular maze of classrooms and offices. After a tour of the impressive facility we went to the Muskoseepi Park Pavilion where students from JANET LONGMATE'S ABE class were participating in a workshop with LINDA HALL.

Linda is working on a AAAL writing project about "famous Albertans". She is travelling around Alberta encouraging literacy students to participate in the project by agreeing to interview and write stories about well known people in Alberta. Some of the famous people to be interviewed are Lorna Bell (adult educator), Lanny McDonald (hockey player), Monica Hughes (writer) and Lee Phillips (calf-roper and steer-rider). When Wenda and I came into the room, the students were having a great time practicing their newly learned interview techniques.

One of the fellows in the class posed as Lanny McDonald and Janet volunteered to be the first interviewer. She saddled up to the table where "Lanny" was sitting and asked in a sultry voice, "So Lanny, what are you doing next Saturday night?" Linda rolled her eyes and the class broke into infectious laughter. The students were still laughing as Wenda and I excused ourselves and went down the hallway, back out to the car.

Wenda had arranged a time for me to meet individually that afternoon with three of the paid tutors currently working in her programs. They were each delightful women, full of stories and enthusiasm and a great sense of fun.

AILSA JOHNSON volunteered as a tutor when she read an ad in the paper about the literacy program just after she moved to Grande Prairie 5 years ago. She has a Masters Degree in Biology and misses the scientific field but thoroughly enjoys working with ESL students. She is currently managing the Language Settlement Training Program under Wenda's supervision.

"This is an outreach program," Ailsa explained. "I go out to people's homes and help them get settled into the community. It is unrealistic to expect people who have just arrived from another country to just walk into a classroom to learn to speak English. They have to be ready for that."

ARLENE LOEWEN, a mother of three children, farms with her husband a half-hour southeast of Grande Prairie. She also worked with newcomers to Canada when she first started her work with The Reading Network a year ago. Wenda asked if she would work with 2 brothers who had just came from Vietnam who were having to wait 2 months to be able to attend the next ESL class.

"I worked with these fellows from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm everyday," Arlene remembered fondly. "A third fellow from Vietnam joined us after awhile. He was really outgoing and really encouraged the others to be more spontaneous and to try new things. (At that point the brothers were so shy they wouldn't even eat in front of me!) But oh boy, you should see them now. Their shyness and reserve is gone. I never would have predicted that they would do so well when I first started working with them; I'm really proud of them."