United Way of Metropolitan Dallas (UWMD) is excited to spotlight one of our outstanding volunteers, Mrs. Joy Sanders. Joy represents United Way’s new LIVE UNITED message of Give. Advocate. Volunteer. with an incredible story and humble spirit. Her past experiences, faith and sincere desire to help others, lead her to her current role as Adult Literacy Coordinator at the Technology Institute, a division of Project Turn Around at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship (OCBF).

Joy has been deeply involved in improving adult literacy since 1976 when she and her husband moved to Papua New Guinea to do Bible translation and literacy work.

“I wanted to help people learn to read so that they could read the Bible,” she said.

For more than 20 years the couple worked with the people of Papua New Guinea before returning to the United States in 1999. From there Joy became a teacher at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL) in Dallas and became a volunteer tutor at OCBF.

In her current role as Adult Literacy Coordinator, Joy credits other volunteers to helping her and the program succeed. Project Turn Around is a partner of UWMD through a grant from North Texas Future Fund. When asked to share a meaningful experience, Joy said, “In the past two years, a person came to class who had never had the opportunity to learn to read before. It has been a joy to see her begin to read words and sentences.”

In her fulltime job, Joy teaches Articulatory Phonetics, sounds of the world’s languages, at the GIAL to students preparing to do Bible translation and literacy work. She also works part time as an RN with Attentive-Primecare Home Health visiting patients in their homes. As an active community volunteer, Joy participates in her church, is a member of Wycliffe Bible Translators and volunteers with the Medical Reserve Corps.

United Way would like to thank Mrs. Joy Sanders for her work in the Dallas area and around the world to improve adult literacy, that’s what it means to LIVE UNITED.