2024 Community Shares of Wisconsin Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, Michele Erikson

Michele Erikson believes literacy is a basic human right and has been working to improve literacy for nearly 40 years. After college, Michele volunteered as a literacy tutor at the Stateline Literacy Council in Beloit. Here she learned how literacy transforms lives and engaged with people learning to read and write for the first time as well as immigrants and refugees wanting a command of the English language.
Since 1985, Michele has worked in literacy at the local and state level as a tutor, board chair, workforce development director, English language instructor, and executive director. At Wisconsin Literacy she supported, developed, and advocated for 70+ community-based literacy organizations statewide. Under Michele’s leadership, the statewide coalition steadily increased, and Wisconsin Literacy members now serve more than 11,000 adult learners.
Early in her time with Wisconsin Literacy, Michele began working in health literacy by directing small projects with local literacy agencies to improve health understanding. In 2010, after receiving additional funding, Wisconsin Health Literacy was launched under her leadership. That work continues in Wisconsin and beyond with a focus on improving health outcomes and reducing health care costs by educating providers and patients on effective ways to communicate through a health literacy and health equity lens.