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September 29, 2025, Adrian, Michigan – Members of the Adrian Rea Literacy Center – adult learners, volunteer tutors, and staff – gathered along with Adrian Dominican Sisters, Associates, and friends to honor a woman who made a difference in their lives. They waited in a long, informal reception line on a Sunday afternoon to thank Sister Carleen Maly, OP, upon her retirement from her position as director of the literacy center.

Founded in 2008, Adrian Rea Literacy Center was one of six literacy centers sponsored by the Adrian Dominican Sisters and located in Adrian and Detroit, Michigan; Chicago; and West Palm Beach, Florida. The Adrian literacy center recently became independent of the Congregation.

Adrian Rea offers free, one-on-one training to adult learners, most of whom are learning English as a Second Language (ESL). The center also offers tutoring to adults whose first language is English. The focus is on listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills – in a welcoming, safe environment

Christine MacNaughton, Chair of the Board of the Adrian Rea Literacy Center, began a short program during the retirement celebration. She presented a plaque to Sister Carleen that read, “In grateful appreciation for dedicated service, Sister Carleen Maly, OP, the heart and soul of the Adrian Rea Literacy Center, 2008 to 2025.”

More personal messages were written on Sister Carleen’s next gift: a quilt made of squares on which Adrian Rea adult learners, volunteer tutors, staff, and board members had written of their appreciation for Sister Carleen.

For her part, Sister Carleen expressed gratitude to the people gathered and gave a heart-felt plea for more people to volunteer as tutors. “We’ve got to help people, especially now that they don’t even know what’s coming,” she said.

She was moved by the people who came to the celebration and by the work that went into preparing it. “The key moments were the beautiful way that my colleagues transformed what was our workspace and our teaching and tutoring space into a royal room – a regal room, because it was lined up with places where people could sit and get to know each other,” she said.

An educator for much of her life as an Adrian Dominican Sister, Sister Carleen also engaged in parish ministry and in 1994 was elected Chapter Prioress (Superior) of the Congregation’s Florida Chapter. In 2000, at the conclusion of her term, she moved to Detroit to be closer to her mother after the death of her father. 

She was invited to live at the convent of Dominican High School and work with Sisters Marie Damian Schoenlein, OP, and Sarah Cavanaugh, OP, at the Dominican Literacy Center. “It was my first taste of adult literacy,” Sister Carleen said. She worked there for three years until the Congregation asked her to serve as Director of Vocation Outreach.

When Sisters Marie Damian and Sarah opened Adrian Rea Literacy Center in Adrian, they asked Sister Carleen to join them. Sister Carleen succeeded Sister Marie Damian as director.

“My biggest challenge was training and keeping tutors,” Sister Carleen said. “We had no trouble finding people who wanted to be tutored.” But, she added, much of the literacy work in the Adrian area was focused on teenagers. “To offer a program of literacy for adult learning was new to a lot of people in this area.” 

Sister Carleen emphasized that the people who are tutored are referred to as adult learners – not as students. “Their children are students.” Being called learners “elevates the adults. Some of them already have a first language of their own. They’re coming here to learn another language,” English, she said.

Sister Carleen expressed admiration for the adult learners – for the hard work they do in their jobs and their determination to learn English. “A lot of the work they do is hard,” she said. “There have been summers here that have been brutal. They’ve been outside eight hours a day … in manual, back-breaking labor.” Yet, she added, they are willing to put in the extra time and effort to come to the literacy center to develop their skills in English.

“The joys are knowing that we are able to change people’s lives because we are able to give them the gift of being able to read, write, and speak in English,” Sister Carleen said. She also finds joy in “giving them the ability to achieve their goals: to help their children [with their homework], to be able to know what the doctor is saying, and to get a better job.” Their commitment to learning also serves as a good example to their children – and a bridge between parents and children who are also learning. “They don’t hesitate to say, ‘My children are teaching me,’” she said. 

Many adult learners also ask for help to prepare for the U.S. citizenship test. “We ask the tutors to help their learners study the 100 questions involved in the citizenship test,” Sister Carleen said, and many have become U.S. citizens.

Sister Carleen is pleased with the dedication of the volunteer tutors, who themselves experience joy as they help the adult learners to improve their English skills. But, she added, Adrian Rea is always in need of more tutors. One-on-one, individualized tutoring “is the best way and the most tried and true way for most adults to learn,” she explained.

Now that she is retired, Sister Carleen said she hopes to continue volunteering in places where there’s a need to help adults, perhaps helping to bring in more tutors. “I believe in our program,” she said. “I’d like to introduce people to our literacy center, that we have a good place for people to come and learn to speak English. This is one of the few literacy centers in this area. It opens new horizons.”  

For more information on how to become a tutor or a learner, contact Adrian Rea Literacy Center at 517-264-7320 in English or 517-264-7327 en Español, or email [email protected]. The Center’s hours are 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Wednesdays.
 

Caption for above feature photo: Sister Carleen Maly, OP, left, and Christine MacNaughton, Chair of the Board of Adrian Rea Literacy Center, display a quilt of squares containing messages from tutors, adult learners, and staff of the literacy center to Sister Carleen.

March 5, 2025, Sección San José, Bani, Dominican Republic – A sense of celebration permeated Sección San José, Bani, a small village in the Dominican Republic, as 300 people gathered to enjoy speakers, a marching band, a brigade of batons and flags, and refreshments on February 15, 2025. Sisters Basilia De la Cruz, OP, Nery "Luchy" Sori, OP, and Eneida Santiago, OP, were in attendance for this joyful inauguration of the Centro de Capacitación Téchnica Integral Hermanas Dominicas de Adrian, a technical and comprehensive training center that could make a difference in the lives of many of the residents throughout the province.
  
The event brought the vision and nine years of work and planning of the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Resilient Community Committee for the Dominican Republic closer to reality.

“I do not think it is an exaggeration when I say that this Centro represents all that is good in our world – and what our world so urgently needs today,” said Sister Elise D. García, OP, Prioress of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, during her talk at the inauguration ceremony. She addressed the community in Spanish.

Sister Elise said the Centro is the “concrete result” of a dream and a vision “to provide comprehensive technical training that will impact not only the lives of your families but the larger world beyond.” She said it is also the “concrete result” of a “mission to work together for the common good of the community” and of a “commitment to seed hope for a brighter future.” Read Sister Elise’s comments in Spanish and in English.

The training center is the centerpiece of the resilient communities plan, Developing Resiliency in the Community of San José, the Dominican Republic. This and five other regional resilient communities initiatives were created in response to the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Enactment on Resilient Communities, approved during the Congregation’s 2016 General Chapter.

Partners with the Adrian Dominican Sisters in developing the technical training center include the Dominican Republic’s Institute for Professional Technical Training (INFOTEP), which will offer internationally recognized certification to graduates of the technical center, and Fe y Alegría, a federation of local organizations that provide education in poor areas in 19 nations, particularly in Latin America. Centro Espíritu Santo Fe y Alegría is a school in Sección San José founded 30 years ago by members of the local community and Adrian Dominican Sisters Maurine Barzantni, OP, and Renee Richie, OP. The school is part of that federation, which also works with technical and vocational schools.

The training center will offer technical and vocational training to the people in the region offering certification needed for well-paying jobs. It will offer tuition-free training in areas such as electrical work, plumbing, recycling, welding, hospitality, cooking, and jewelry-making. Graduates will earn certification from INFOTEP.   

Along with hands-on workshops, the technical center includes a community garden and seven classrooms, four of them named in memory of Adrian Dominican Sisters who ministered in Sección San José: Sisters Maurine and Renee, along with Sisters Margaret Lane, OP, and Sharon McGuire, OP, who often ministered in healthcare, said Sister Luchy, who ministers at Centro Espíritu Santo. 
 
“We hope [the Center] will be ready to open in two months or so,” said Sister Eneida, who also ministers at Centro Espíritu Santo with Sister Luchy and Sister Basilia, the principal. She said the technical center is waiting to be connected to electricity to allow for the completion of the workshops. “When everything is ready, [INFOTEP] will give us the approval. Then we’ll open the school,” Sister Eneida said. 

The technical center “is for every town around our little town” and for people at all levels of education, Sister Luchy said. Programs are available to working adults who need the training and certification to earn higher wages; adults who have completed high school and those who have not; and high school students who seek extra training on weekends and in evenings. 

The new center is also causing excitement among Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates who came to the Dominican Republic to attend the inauguration. Sister Carol Gross, OP, who ministered in the Dominican Republic for more than 30 years, said she was pleased to return and to see the growth of Centro Espíritu Santo. Four of the school’s original teachers attended the dedication of the technical center, she said. 

Sister Carol described the technical center as a “dream come true” for Sister Maurine. “Maurine, right from the very, very beginning, was concerned about vocational education and helping people to get those skills that they could use to be productive members of society,” she said. “It was special for me to think that that dream was right there from the beginning.”  

Lloyd Van Bylevelt, an Adrian Dominican Associate and member of the Resilient Community Committee that planned the technical center, recalled the committee’s hard work. “Basically, we had a lot of meetings, probably once or twice monthly for close to a year, figuring out the ideas and getting some resiliency into the plans,” he said. 

Lloyd was impressed by the celebratory nature of the dedication – and by the technical center itself. “To see it become real was very fulfilling,” he said. He anticipates that it will be a “major contributor” to the lives of the local community members and will augment the benefits that Centro Espíritu Santo has brought to the community over the years. 

Dee Joyner, an Adrian Dominican Associate and former Director of Resilient Communities, also attended the ceremony and was pleased by the construction and dedication of the technical center. “Just to see the project come together like that and the end result was a real highlight for me,” she said. “It was the vision the Sisters had when we first started working with them to develop the plan.”

Dee was also pleased with the local community. “The level of engagement of the community in the project was exactly what we were hoping for,” particularly the commitment of the local community to bring the project forward and make it sustainable – so that it can be continued in years to come. “It’s so apparent that they’re invested in the project,” she said.

As Director of Resilient Communities, Dee oversaw the committees whose initiatives were approved by the Adrian Dominican Sisters General Council. These included five initiatives in addition to the project in the Dominican Republic.

•    McKinley Park Resilient Community Initiative: Creating a More Resilient Immigrant Community, Chicago.
•    Growing Up Resilient: The East Adrian Youth Resilience Collaborative, Adrian.
•    An investment to construct a second building at the Dominican School of Angeles City in the Mining barangay, Province of Pampanga, Philippines.
•    Affordable Housing as a Platform for Education, Equity, and Community Resilience, Seattle.
•    The Empowering Resilient Women Initiative, Flint, Michigan. 

View a highlight reel of the inauguration below, in Spanish:

Caption for feature photo at top: Sister Elise D. García, OP, Prioress of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, cuts the ribbon during the inauguration of the Centro de Capacitación Técnica Integral Hermanas Dominicas de Adrian with Father José R. López, SJ, Director of Fe y Alegría Dominicana. Among the community members are representatives of the Adrian Dominican Congregation: Associate Dee Joyner, behind Sister Elise; and from the left of Sister Elise, Sisters Basilia De la Cruz, OP, and Eneida Santiago, OP; Associate Lloyd Van Bylevelt; and Sister Nery (Luchy) Sori, OP.