UServeUtah AmeriCorps Lifetime Service Award Presented to Gloria Skanchy

March, 2019

The UServeUtah AmeriCorps Lifetime Service Award honors an individual that has dedicated their time and effort in an extraordinary way over the course of their career to National Service in Utah. The first recipient of this award is Gloria Skanchy.

Gloria Skanchy was instrumental in developing the Read Graduate Succeed (RGS) AmeriCorps program which focuses on literacy and mentoring in close to 200 schools across the state and has managed the program for the past 16 years. Over that time, thousands of children in the state of Utah have improved their reading abilities and moved on to become successful in school and in life. The addition of the high school mentoring focus, has helped almost 2,000 students correct their course and graduate from high school, through the efforts of the amazing RGS AmeriCorps members.

Shelly Barnett of Read Graduate Succeed (center) accepted the award on behalf of Gloria Skanchy.
From left to right: Barbara Stewart (CEO of CNCS), Jake Murakami (CNCS State Office), Shelly Barnett (Read Graduate Succeed), Greg Bates (UServeUtah), LaDawn Stoddard (UServeUtah)

Gloria attended Utah State University and earned a B.S., M.S and Ph.D. She has worked in various educational settings for 33 years and has traveled the state in her work with the AmeriCorps program. She has had the opportunity to develop close relationships with excellent school principals and AmeriCorps members and in her words “has learned that when you find good people and give them the tools they need, you have the opportunity to watch them take off. Wonderful things happen when people you work with learn to fly.”

“Gloria has an amazing passion for those she works with and the students being served” said LaDawn Stoddard Director of UServeUtah. “Her commitment to the RGS program has been the moving force in its success for almost 16 years and she will be greatly missed.” Having grown up in Logan, she now resides in Ogden near her 2 children and 4 grandchildren. By the way, through her travels she also probably knows every road in the state of Utah!