Dear All,

It is with a grateful heart that I announce my retirement. I have been with the Nashville Adult Literacy Council since 1996. These have been wonderful years for me. Years full of life and learning and love and laughter. I have grown as a person and as an educator. And I have you all to thank for this.

It has been an honor and a privilege to work with my adult students. My students are role models of courage and perseverance. I will be forever grateful for the many gifts my students have brought into my life.

Lessons my students have taught me:

Be patient and kind
Be a good listener
Learn something new everyday
Be flexible
Say I’m sorry
Share hopes and dreams
Forgive quickly
Try something new
Live in this moment
Smile more
Applaud often
Choose happiness today
Never give up
Tomorrow is another day

I am equally grateful for the hundreds of volunteers I have had the pleasure to work with these many years. NALC could not exist without volunteers. I thank you all for investing your time and talent with us and with our students. Thank you for welcoming strangers into your lives and sharing their journeys.

I want to send out a fond thank you to Nashville Public Library (NPL). I have memories of such wonderful times in each library (touring the Main Library with my DC4 students, sheltering from a tornado in the Pruitt Library conference room, and helping a student vote at Bordeaux, to name a few.) All these memories bring me joy. I am so very grateful for the support NPL has offered to all the adult education programs in our community.

And to our Board of Directors - thank you for your welcoming smiles and open hearts. Thank you for seeing and understanding the joys and sorrows involved in all we do. Thank you for caring about all who live in our Nashville community.

Public Education in the USA was started as a way to create a literate society so that we could remain a democratic society. If Democracy is the foundation of this country, we at NALC are a brick in that foundation.

A dear thank you to my fellow co-workers past and present. It has been a joy! We help with skills needed to participate in our community. We are stepping stones on the way to independence. We are the connecting force between our students and their jobs, their health care, and their future. We are the stairway students use to travel from a place of insecurity to a place of opportunity and independence. We celebrate their successes every day, as our students take on roles in our community. We make community possible.

Cheers to you all:

Students, Volunteers, Board, Library, and Co-workers past and present.

Thank you. I will miss you. My years at NALC have been wonderful. You are forever in my heart.

I hope to spend my retirement years in our Nashville community volunteering in various enterprises, enjoying music, and continuing to promote lifelong learning for us all.

Sarah Coode
Literacy Specialist