Celebrate Literacy Award

Rarely do we educators encounter a parent role model and community volunteer who so quietly, selflessly and diligently “walks the walk” while carving out substantial educational projects in the larger community to reflect a respect for education, books, literacy and the notion of service. It is refreshing to say the least and also hopeful during times like these, when teachers and education, principles of DEI, and authors’ works are so negatively scrutinized, to highlight such an individual.

For over a decade, our 2025 CLA nominee, Lynn Tucker, has emerged as a person of character and service, who eagerly researches best practices to benefit her growing family, her local faith organization and parent community, as well as the international community. Without knowingly valuing her own efforts and gifts as characteristic of a Literacy Hero, Lynn has emerged as such. Nobscot Reading Council is proud to have identified the many tenets of the Celebrate Literacy Award in Lynn’s personal and volunteer efforts and presents her as our MRA 2025 candidate. We are overjoyed to nominate Lynn Tucker as an exceptional literacy and education hero.

I was first acquainted with Lynn in the role of her youngest son’s reading teacher, after she relocated from California with her husband and three young children. Never had I experienced such follow through and genuine interest in literacy with a parent of a striving reader. Lynn made books and literacy a priority in her home; she and her husband modeled a respect for the language of communication and literacy, and the value of family and community.  Any time they requested a book, her son and his older siblings could count on receiving it. She was Barnes and Noble’s best customer (she confesses to indulging her children with “an unlimited budget for books”!), allowing Starbucks hot chocolate and grazing for books to secure such motivation to read. She read with her children according to their tastes, bought them Kindles and access to Audible; indeed she introduced me to Audible those years ago. Lynn was/is a sponge for information about literacy and books and as you’ll read herein, she applied those lessons to her work and service. As a Caucasian mother of three mixed race children, Lynn was appreciative of my advocacy for “Windows and Mirrors” book choices on both personal and community levels. Her once struggling son is now a successful college freshman and continues to be an informed and discriminate reader, an unabashed “discussor” of books.  

While parenting, often on her own as her husband’s company kept him bicoastal, Lynn supported educational and literacy programs. Lynn was a public school PTO and K-3 classroom volunteer, with the bi-annual book fairs at the top of her list. At home, Lynn organized a multi-community women’s book discussion group focused on Bible readings for women, open to ALL, which continues to this day.

Additionally, our nominee volunteered in the local community church’s school program and created a children’s library (which she laments didn’t take off as well as she thought it might!). She also sought experts to provide literacy training sessions and research-based practice to parents of early readers and writers (I was one such volunteer). When her last son entered college, Lynn took over as education director of the Sunday school and parent education support program at her church, located a few towns away, in another Nobscot community, Hopkinton. She develops the curriculum and lesson plans, with an eye to incorporating read-alouds, relating literature and writing to content.  

Lynn was proud to share with me that her lessons “incorporate different types of learning” to accommodate individual needs. She offered that there are quite a few students with autism, and her lessons allow for different ways of assessment and demonstrating understanding. Applying research she learned as a parent - another CLA tenet checked off! 

Lynn and her family also volunteered at the Milford mobile food pantry for 6 years, bringing books to disseminate to immigrants and creating a sort of book exchange; she donated and purchased books for each child, referring to our previous discussions about research on book choice! She lamented the lack of “very good Spanish books”.  We discussed outside sources like First Book and the possibility of a mini-grant through Nobscot and or MRA. I would gladly sponsor Lynn’s membership in Nobscot and partner with her in such an endeavor! 

Lynn also volunteered to teach Bible Study at her church summer camp and her family donated money to fund the purchase of a personal Bible for each camper, supporting research on learning and literacy engagement through easy access to and owning your own books. If this wasn’t enough, Lynn and her family independently planned annual service trips to the Dominican Republic to educate and worship with, donate sports equipment and games (they would purchase and also ask for community donations) for the children. Of course, they bought and donated read-aloud books which they left with the residents in the classrooms.

All of these acts of service support the CLA tenet of “conducting informal educational acts of social, cultural, economical…nature in which literacy is included.” I only came to know this information when I probed Lynn to tell me more about what she has done. She truly has no idea the impact she has made. Lynn is not only a model parent, but an invaluable person “in our village,” a woman of humility and service, and indeed one of the best people I have known, and so many other “villagers” agree. But you would never hear her blowing a horn. I am proud that we can support such positivity and constructivism through our council and MRA. 

Lynn Tucker is surely the epitome of a community literacy and education leader and an example of how one individual fulfills what MRA means by “Celebrate Literacy Award Recipient”. We are overjoyed to present our valuable nominee to the MRA 2025 CLA Committee.

Above: Kim Kelley, Lynn, and Holly Banusiewicz