Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 816. It's FALX Morning Monday. It's our monthly visit with Literacy Volunteers of Ontario Yates at LVOY.org. Liz Searles is with us. Good morning. Welcome back. And we're going to talk about the spelling bee today, one of the major events of the year. And we have with us a longtime participant in the bee, Dr. Lara Blanchard from Hobart and William Smith. So Liz, tell us about the spelling bee. It's been going on for a long time. I have to tell our Rotarians I did it one year as part of the Rotary team and we didn't do that well. So we have nowhere to go but up. So tell us about this event. It's one of your big ones that you do every year.
Liz Searles, Dr. Laura Blanchard: Yeah, it's been around a long time. This is going to be our 23rd year. So we're really excited about that. And it is our most successful fundraising event of the year. We use the proceeds to provide materials for our tutors and learners to help recruit and train tutors as well as providing staff support and everything else that goes along with supporting our tutors and learners. So we really, really appreciate the success of the event. It's going to be on Sunday, February 2nd, from 1 to 5 p.m. And during COVID, we moved the event from an in-person event to online via Zoom. And I don't know if we will always do it that way but we are continuing it this year. I think it offers some advantages. Last year, we had some participants from over near Albany and even from Pennsylvania. So, you know, they can participate from anywhere which, you know, when you have to think about driving to Geneva in February, there's a lot of question marks about the weather. So doing it remotely kind of removes that. But we've just opened registration. All the details for the event will be live on our website today. But for a team, it's just $300 to participate. We have sponsorships starting from $300 on up and, of course, donations of any amount. And I'm really, really thrilled this year because we have two generous sponsors who have given $5,000 each as matching grants. So up to $10,000 of any contribution to the B will be matched, which is really tremendous. I'd like to thank Nancy Sands and the Holler & Financial Group for that support.
Paul Szmal: It's interesting you talk about doing it virtually because it was the interviews on this program, we started using Zoom during the pandemic when we were restricted in contact. And a lot of people just found over time, it is much more convenient. It's the same thing. Instead of somebody, somebody might have to drive half an hour here to do a 10-minute spot and drive half hour back, they'd rather do it in their PJs on Zoom and that's fine.
Liz Searles, Dr. Laura Blanchard: Right. There's a lot of advantages as well as just folks being able to participate from other geographic regions. The way the event is run, and it's very similar to what folks might be familiar with the youth script spelling bee. The moderator gives the word and the team can ask for it to be repeated, ask for it to be used in a sentence, its origin, all that kind of thing. The only thing that's different is that you work as a team. You're not on your own. You get up to three people that you can confer with before you decide on your final spelling. But logistically, the way it runs is before the day of the event, you know what time you need to be on Zoom. We do rounds at one o'clock, two o'clock and three o'clock. And you know that if you win, you need to be available for the championship round at four. So I think it's a little more convenient for the participants instead of just having to block out their whole afternoon. But Laura might be able to tell me if I'm right on that or not.
Oh, yeah. I actually think that moving to Zoom has been actually a really great thing. I mean, obviously, it happened, first of all, because we were in a pandemic and we couldn't meet together. But I think that what it actually allows me to do, I'm usually on Zoom from my office. And so like in between like rounds, you know, like if we make it through whatever round we're in, then I'm able to like do a little work or, you know, catch up on things before going to the championship round.
Yeah. And another thing is that our team has definitely had people watching us from like, you know, our family members, like my niece lives in Northern Virginia, and she generally tunes in with my sister to watch this happen. We had one of our team members from a couple years ago, Darren McGee, is originally from Louisiana, and he had his mother watching the year that he was participating. And so that's really been like a fun thing that, you know, that this has become something that has been of interest to people who are kind of far away.
Paul Szmal: I never thought of that aspect of it. That's great for friends and family to be able to follow. Do you do anything particular to prepare? Is there a specific dictionary from which these words are taken or how do you get ready?
Liz Searles, Dr. Laura Blanchard: I don't get ready. I really don't get ready. I just, you know, I really think that, I don't know. I feel like getting ready is making it maybe too serious somehow. I think this is supposed to be a fun event. It's supposed to be kind of lighthearted. And I feel like cramming for it is the wrong thing to do.
Yeah. So I don't, I don't get ready at all. I don't like look at a dictionary or anything. Sometimes that can kind of backfire too. If you get, you know, you get your head so full of stuff that, that you kind of get a brain lock when it comes time for a word.
Right. But I mean, it's really, it's really meant to be kind of a fun thing. And it, I think that really the great thing about it for me is that it reminds me how difficult the English language is like it, you know, it just draws from so many different sources and, you know, um, half the time, you know, you get a word, I get a word and I have no idea what it is. And, you know, I'm asking for like definitions and trying to figure out what the origin of it is so that I can maybe figure out like, is this a word that's coming in from like a different language? Can that help me or my teammates with like spelling it? Um, but you know, just the puzzle of trying to like sort of figure out what it is, is actually, I think the really fun thing. I think if we came in and we, you know, felt really confident that we knew any word that was going to be thrown at us, then that's, I don't know, that's not as fun. I mean, memorization to me is important in a lot of ways, but for this, I don't think it's, you know, I don't think it's necessary.
Paul Szmal: Well, and like you said, there's so many different permutations in English. There's that old joke going around about how you can spell fish, P-H-O-T-I.
Liz Searles, Dr. Laura Blanchard: Right, right, exactly. Using the alternate sounds for those combinations of letters.
Right, exactly. Yeah. And the other thing, of course, is that I think it's an inspired for LVOY because it really does sort of underscore how, you know, difficult it is to become literate in English, right? That there are so many barriers to like learning how to write and read in this language. And so for me, like any moment when I'm like struggling to figure out like how to like deal with a word that I haven't heard of before, you know, I don't know. It just makes me more mindful of like how important LVOY's work is in this community, right? You know, that they are reaching out, right, and trying to help more people with literacy so that they can, you know, they can get their high school diploma or they can like, you know, apply for citizenship or they can apply for a better job or all the things that literacy makes a difference in. And so, you know, being reminded of that is really something that I think is very important.
Paul Szmal: Do you have a regular team that you're a part of or does it kind of, is it a rotating cast?
Liz Searles, Dr. Laura Blanchard: It kind of does rotate. For the past several years, we've been a pretty steady team. It's been Professor Leah Hemelhock, who teaches in Classics or now I think we call it now Greek and Roman Studies on this campus. And we have Ruth Benedict, who is a Director of Annual Giving at HWS. And we've been like, we've worked together really well. And that is going to be our team this year, I'm pretty sure. Occasionally what happens is that I think a couple of years ago, Leah had responsibilities with her daughter. And so we had to like ask for, we had to ask for a substitute for her. And that was when we had Professor Darren McGee step in. And occasionally we have like somebody like sub in for one of us. But this year will be the team that we've had for the past, for most of the past several years.
Paul Szmal: Liz, remind us of the importance of this money you raise and where your funding comes from. Do you get any sort of institutional funding or anything for the program?
Liz Searles, Dr. Laura Blanchard: Well, all of our funding comes from either grants or donations. So we do have a grant from the New York State Education Department, but everything else from our budget comes through charitable support. So that's why the success of this event is so important to us. And if I can, Ted, I'll just piggyback on something Laura said. When I talk to folks, I like this timing because if folks are kind of thinking about it, they have time over the holidays to strong arm their friends and family to join a team with them. But when I talk to people, sometimes what I hear is nervousness about it, right? Nobody wants to get eliminated really early or miss a really easy word and, you know, feel weird about it. And I'm reminded of our English language learners, particularly who have level of discomfort or anxiety or nervousness whenever they go out into the community and they're trying to master the language because there's worry about, you know, am I going to use the right word or am I going to understand what the store clerk says to me or will she be able to understand me with my accent? So there's that level of discomfort every time they go out until they get a certain level of mastery. So I would encourage folks that, you know, they can overcome that little bit of discomfort to have fun some afternoon working in our Bee if our learners can kind of do it every day. I think that's a great aspect of it that you're kind of, you're walking a mile in somebody else's shoes and you're learning a little bit, you're reminded about what it's like for those learners.
Paul Szmal: LVOY.org is the website, Literacy Volunteers of Ontario and Yates. The registration deadline is January 19th. The Bee is on Sunday, February 2nd, and you can go to LVOY.org. Liz, thank you. And Dr. Laura Blanchard from HWS, thanks to you as well. We appreciate your time this morning.
Liz Searles, Dr. Laura Blanchard: Thanks, Ted.
Thank you so much.
