Longtime educator receives key to Jacksonville
For more than 50 years, former Fishweir Elementary School teacher Sarah Van Cleve has been actively helping people in Jacksonville learn to read. On Sept. 19, Van Cleve was recognized for her efforts when Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry bestowed the Key to the City during an awards banquet held by Literacy Pros of Jacksonville, a nonprofit she helped found 15 years ago to train tutors to help in the eradication of illiteracy.
“I’m speechless. I’m just overwhelmed,” Van Cleve said. “I love this city and to have the key is beyond my wildest hopes.”
Upon arriving at the awards ceremony at First Presbyterian Church, where she was baptized and has been a lifelong member, Van Cleve had no idea she was, in fact, the guest of honor. At the start of the ceremony, she was extremely surprised when Literacy Pros President Julia Henry-Wilson began reading a long list of her many accomplishments that were part of an official Resolution, inscribed on a plaque, to establish the nonprofit’s Sarah Van Cleve Achievement Awards in honor of her dedication and leadership to Literacy Pros of Jacksonville.
“I was wondering why my family was here,” she said, as Henry-Wilson handed her the plaque.
A 1950 graduate of Robert E. Lee High School and a longtime resident of Avondale, Van Cleve has a long history of selflessly giving back to the city. The Resolution outlined many of her lifetime accomplishments, both as a founding and board member of Literacy Pros, where she tutored prisoners and trained tutors to teach the city’s illiterate and underserved, as well as the numerous other civic and charitable organizations where she has served as a volunteer.
Championing the group’s service to prisoners, Van Cleve was instrumental in the nonprofit’s receiving the U.S. Program Innovation Award, when it was only one year old and the smallest council for Literacy Pros in the United States.
Van Cleve also created affiliate relationships between Literacy Pros and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, St. Vincent’s Medical Center, the Salvation Army, the Jacksonville Urban League, Volunteers of America, Prisoners of Christ, and the Women’s Center of Jacksonville, and secured financial contributions from United Way, community leaders and individuals.
“This is my passion, literacy,” Van Cleve said. “I’ve loved reading all my life, and my hell would be not being able to read.”
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