In a room full of adults—strangers—this little girl cleared her throat to make an announcement. She wanted to say thank you to Read To Succeed, she said, for giving her dad a tutor who taught him to read.

Ronni Shaw, Read To Succeed’s founding executive director, counts this among her favorite moments during her eight years with the organization.

“That this sweet, perfect little girl not only understood the power of what had happened, but also that she was willing to stand up and say that--that really floored me,” Shaw says.

By the end of May, Ronni Shaw will leave Read To Succeed, the Rutherford County nonprofit she helped found in 2003.

Back then, Shaw was part of a group of people involved with literacy in the community brought together by the Rebecca and Jennings Jones Foundation. Shaw, then the Family Services and Outreach Director for the Discovery Center, was asked to be the executive director of this new initiative aimed at promoting literacy.

“They wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Shaw says. So she found herself in a new job.

Eight years later, she’s saying goodbye.

“Read To Succeed is ready to move from a relatively new and small nonprofit to the next level of development,” Shaw said. “In fact, our new strategic plan calls for increased family and adult literacy programming and more volunteer involvement. Our search committee really focused on finding just the right person to grow RTS.  Although I have loved the community organizing part of this job, it’s time for a leader with some business background to take over, someone with experience managing many people and large budgets. I’m ready to be out of the public eye and to return to clinical social work.”

Enter Lisa Mitchell, Shaw’s successor, a current member of MTSU Adjunct Faculty in the Business Department and a corporate executive for more than 20 years.

For Mitchell, the Read To Succeed executive director job opening came at just at the right time.

She had decided to leave the corporate world to spend more time with her family and community and wanted to search for work that would give meaning to the next part of her life. Mitchell knew, she says, that this would involve community service. A few months ago, she picked up the paper and saw an article about Shaw’s departure. She knew this was the right position.

“This job fulfills a need in my life that the corporate world was never able to,” Mitchell says. “It fits my heart, not just my head. [After leaving my last job], I knew that, at the end of the day, I wanted to be making a difference.”

Shaw, who has watched Read To Succeed evolve from an idea into a well-known non-profit, says she thinks that Mitchell is just the woman to take it to the next level.  

“We have a good financial base, super staff and programming, the Lon Nuell Family Literacy Center, and there’s an understanding in the community that literacy matters,” Shaw says. “One of the greatest satisfactions I’ve gotten from this job is that now when I call people for support or when I go out into the community to talk about Read To Succeed, people know about our work. They know the importance of our mission and what we’re all about. Now it’s time to expand that.”

Read To Succeed’s mission—namely, promoting literacy—has turned into several family literacy and adult literacy programs throughout the community, including after-school programs for the whole family at Title 1 schools and a free, one-on-one adult tutoring program, among many others.

For Shaw and Mitchell, both mothers who have seen their children through years of school, literacy is important at work and at home.

“Even into their teenage years, I still talk to my kids about reading,” Shaw says. “When they walk in the door, I always ask what they’re reading; what their homework is; what they’re working on. Those are the first questions I ask.”

Mitchell says reading was also a big deal at her house. Both of her sons were visiting the library as soon as they started to walk.

“You have to nurture that love early,” Mitchell says. “If you start early enough, they’ll grow up loving it.”

As far as the future of Read To Succeed goes, Shaw and Mitchell both see one thing: More. More programs, more volunteers, more people served—a bigger capacity for promoting and celebrating literacy in Rutherford County.

 “My hope is that everyone who wants to participate in our programs has the ability to do that,” Mitchell says. “Whether that’s as a learner in our tutoring program, a volunteer, a donor, or as a student. This community has so many people who want to give back but who maybe just don’t know how. I want to bring that together. I’ve seen all these kids and adults in Read To Succeed programs, and I know there are so any more that would benefit from what we do. I just want to help put more books in their hands.”