[Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, February 2014
Brian Buhrow
buhrow at lothlorien.nfbcal.org
Wed Mar 12 00:01:33 PDT 2014
The Braille Monitor, Februaryy 2014
Gary Wunder, Editor
Distributed by email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB
flash drive (see reverse side) by
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
Marc Maurer, President
telephone: (410) 659-9314 email address: nfb at nfb.org website
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Federation of the Blind and sent to:
National Federation of the Blind 200 East Wells Street at
Jernigan Place Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION
SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR
THEMSELVES.
ISSN 0006-8829
(C) 2014 by the National Federation of the Blind
Information about the Audio Edition
Each issue is recorded on a thumb drive (also called a
memory stick or USB flash drive). You can read this audio
edition using a computer or a National Library Service
digital player. The NLS machine has two slots--the familiar
book-cartridge slot just above the retractable carrying
handle and a second slot located on the right side near
the headphone jack. This smaller slot is used to play thumb
drives. Remove the protective rubber pad covering this slot
and insert the thumb drive. It will insert only in one
position. If you encounter resistance, flip the drive over
and try again. (Note: If the cartridge slot is not empty
when you insert the thumb drive, the digital player will
ignore the thumb drive.) Once the thumb drive is inserted,
the player buttons will function as usual for reading
digital materials. If you remove the thumb drive to use
the player for cartridges, when you insert it again, reading
should resume at the point you stopped. You can transfer
the recording of each issue from the thumb drive to your
computer or preserve it on the thumb drive. However, because
thumb drives can be used hundreds of times, we would
appreciate their return in order to stretch our funding.
Please use the return label enclosed with the drive when
you return the device. [PHOTO CAPTION: Palm-lined drive
leading to front entrance to Rosen Centre Hotel]
Orlando Site of 2014 NFB Convention
The 2014 convention of the National Federation of the Blind
will take place in Orlando, Florida, July 1-6, at the Rosen
Centre Hotel at 9840 International Drive, Orlando, Florida
32819. Make your room reservation as soon as possible with
the Rosen Centre staff only. Call (800) 204-7234. The 2014
room rates are singles, doubles, and twins, $82; and triples
and quads, $88. In addition to the room rates there will
be a tax, which at present is 13.5 percent. No charge will
be made for children under seventeen in the room with
parents as long as no extra bed is requested. The hotel is
accepting reservations now. A $95-per-room deposit is
required to make a reservation. Fifty percent of the deposit
will be refunded if notice is given to the hotel of a
reservation cancellation before May 28, 2014. The other 50
percent is not refundable. Rooms will be available on a
first-come, first-served basis. Reservations may be made
before June 1, 2014, assuming that rooms are still available.
After that time the hotel will not hold our room block for
the convention. In other words, you should get your
reservation in soon. Guest-room amenities include cable
television; in-room safe; coffeemaker; hairdryer; and, for
a fee, high-speed Internet access. Guests can also enjoy
a swimming pool, fitness center, and on-site spa. The Rosen
Centre Hotel offers fine dining at Executive Chef Michael
Rumplik's award-winning Everglades Restaurant. In addition,
there is an array of dining options from sushi to tapas to
a 24-hour deli. The hotel has first-rate amenities and
shuttle service to the Orlando airport. The schedule for
the 2014 convention is: Tuesday, July 1 Seminar
Day Wednesday, July 2 Registration Day Thursday, July 3
Board Meeting and Division Day Friday, July 4 Opening
Session Saturday, July 5 Business Session Sunday, July 6
Banquet Day and Adjournment
Vol. 57, No. 2
February 2014
Contents
Illustration: If These Walls Could Talk
The National Federation of the Blind Board Members at Work by Gary
Wunder
Who Are the Blind Who Lead the Blind?
The Glass is Half Full: Investing in the Capacity of Workers with
Disabilities by Anil Lewis
Yet another Federationist Speaks Out About Subminimum Wages by
Michael Barber
Déjà Vu All Over Again
The Secret to Winning a National Federation of the Blind Scholarship
by Patti S. Gregory-Chang
Recipes
Monitor Miniatures
[PHOTO/CAPTION: The United States Capitol building] [PHOTO/CAPTION:
The Supreme Court] [PHOTO/CAPTION: The White House]
If These Walls Could Talk
As this issue goes in the mail, many of us are returning
from the Washington Seminar. At this time of the year we
not only talk with Congress about matters of concern to
the blind but reflect on the good fortune we have to live
in this country, to participate in its representative
democracy, and to visit the buildings where the business
of the people is conducted. Visiting the Capitol is an
annual event, visits to the White House happen with less
regularity, and arguments before the Supreme Court happen
with even less frequency, but all branches of government
know that the National Federation of the Blind is the
foremost authority on blindness and, unlike the hundreds
of agencies for the blind, we are the blind, speaking for
ourselves. The National Federation of the Blind Board of
Directors at Work
by Gary Wunder
In the January issue we talked about the role of resolutions in
policymaking. The convention hears and acts on proposed resolutions,
and it does this in its role as the supreme authority of the
Federation. Because the national convention is an annual event,
the board of directors of the Federation is charged with handling
the affairs of the organization between conventions. At least two
in-person meetings are held annually. The one most familiar to
convention attendees is held on the day before the opening session.
The second is the fall meeting, which is held at the NFB Jernigan
Institute. This year the board convened over the Thanksgiving
weekend, with board members, spouses, and family members arriving
on Wednesday to prepare for and celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday
prior to the commencement of official business on Friday morning,
November 29, 2013. Let's look at the agenda and decisions made at
this meeting.
The board began its work promptly at 8 AM by reviewing the
minutes of board meetings which had occurred in the past
twelve months. This review is key because it sets the stage
for talking about our ongoing activities and provides
important information that can be used as the board charts
the future direction of the programs and activities of the
organization. At the fall meeting the board of directors
spends a significant amount of time reviewing the finances of the
Federation. It is clear that our financial picture is better than
it was last year, but it is equally clear that we must figure out
a way to raise more money if we are to meet the many challenges we
face. Fundraising through the mail is becoming ever more difficult,
and the same is true for telephone solicitations. Although these
programs continue to bring in some money, it is clear that we must
take seriously the task of finding new and innovative ways to get
our message to the public and to invite its support. To further
this goal, we have established a new program with GreenDrop, an
organization which collects donated items and makes them available
for sale through local thrift stores. Currently we are working with
this organization on the East Coast and hope soon to expand our
operation to include other parts of the United States.
Another program with much promise is the Vehicle Donation
Program that allows donors to give their used vehicles to
the National Federation of the Blind. All that is required
of us is that we publicize the program and figure out how
to advertise it widely to the general public. This we can
do using social media and special fliers we can take to
places where we do business. The Preauthorized Contribution
Plan (also called the PAC Plan) is unquestionably the most
successful fundraising program that we have for accepting
contributions from our members. This year marked an all-time
high in giving, testifying to the commitment of our membership
to achieve the ambitious goals we have set for ourselves
and the realization that adequate financing is a key to
meeting them. In addition to giving what we can from our
own wallets, we must find a way to increase public support,
and one of the programs designed to do this is the Imagination
Fund. This effort is being chaired by Anil Lewis, and our
emphasis will be on increasing the number of Imaginators
-- members who ask for contributions from family, friends,
and those with whom we do business. Since our effort in
the 1960s to create the International Federation of the
Blind, now the World Blind Union (WBU), we have had an
abiding interest in helping people around the world create
the kind of member-run organization we have here in the
United States and to help them build the programs this self
organization promotes. The World Blind Union General Assembly
meets every four years and, like the Olympics, it entertains
proposals from countries wishing to host it. One question
considered by the board of directors was whether the National
Federation of the Blind would be interested in hosting the
assembly on behalf of the North America/Caribbean Region
in the United States. This meeting would occur in 2016 and
would represent significant work, but the potential to show
the blind of the world what we have achieved in the United
States through our own self-organization convinced the
board this was a worthwhile activity to undertake. Therefore,
we will begin the work necessary to prepare a bid to host
the WBU in Baltimore. John Paré discussed with the board
our ongoing efforts to see that the regulations implementing the
Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act address the concerns that caused
the National Federation of the Blind to press for this legislation.
The process is taking longer than we would like, a major sticking
point being whether cars which are stopped should make some kind
of sound to indicate that they are at a street crossing. The position
of the NFB is that this is an absolutely crucial piece of information
to have as we decide whether or not to proceed. There is every
reason to believe that the final regulations will require the
emission of sound anytime a vehicle is in use. The board discussed
the upcoming seventy-fifth anniversary of the National Federation
of the Blind. Fred Schroeder is coordinating the activities that
will celebrate this momentous anniversary, and these will occur
not only at our seventy-fifth convention but throughout our
seventy-fifth year.
Mark Riccobono is the executive director of the Jernigan
Institute, who is currently celebrating his tenth anniversary
as an employee of the National Federation of the Blind. In
his report to the board he discussed the Braille Enhancement
for Literacy and Learning (BELL) Program, future programs
to encourage work in the fields of science, technology,
engineering, and math, and a $1.5 million grant to fund a
program that will allow us to work with young people from
six states to encourage their participation in the study
of science. On the subject of access to technology, we
continue to work with Google, Microsoft, and other software
developers to convince them that accessibility should be
a part of their initial design and should not be considered
an optional feature to be added at some later time. Work
is ongoing as we see to the full implementation of the Help America
Vote Act. A number of states wish to return to paper ballots but
realize they need accessibility and therefore accessibility
consultants. Efforts are also ongoing to allow voting using mobile
devices, and one of the issues we have been asked to address is
how we will meet the needs of the deaf-blind.
A review of the legal cases in which we are involved took
a good part of one afternoon, but the list clearly demonstrates
our commitment to see that blind people receive equal
treatment in society, whether we are seeking to use the
technology now required to pay for a taxi ride or work as
a trained chiropractor. The last matter of business to
come before the board was a discussion by President Maurer
about the leadership of the organization and specifically
about the presidency. He has been our president since 1986
and has been the longest-serving president in our history.
When he was elected, Dr. Jernigan was still in good health
and was able for more than a decade to assist him in taking
on the awesome responsibilities involved in leading the
National Federation of the Blind. While he is still in good
health and has the mental and physical energy to lead,
President Maurer wants to offer to his successor the same
mentoring he was blessed to receive and to be an active
part of the transition of power from one generation to the
next. Fred Schroeder, the first vice president of the
National Federation of the Blind and the president of the
National Federation of the Blind of Virginia, wrote to his
affiliate members to tell them what was discussed on Saturday
afternoon. This is what he said:
As you know, Dr. Marc Maurer has been our national president since
1986. He has served as president longer than any of our previous
presidents and has guided us through a period of unprecedented
growth and change. It was under Dr. Maurer's leadership that we
established the Jernigan Institute and all of the programs that
have been so successful in demonstrating the truth of our assertion
that, given proper opportunity and training, blind people can live
and work as others do. In particular we have developed many programs
designed to provide blind children and youth with the skills and
confidence they need to compete fully in their education and to
develop their life ambitions. We have conducted Youth Slam, the
Science Academy, and more recently the BELL programs. In the area
of technology, under Dr. Maurer's leadership we developed the KNFB
Reader Mobile, allowing blind people to have immediate access to
print with nothing more than a cell phone and special software.
And then there was the Blind Driver Challenge(TM). There is no
question that lack of access to reliable transportation remains a
major barrier for blind people. Yet, the Blind Driver Challenge
showed that we could develop the technology to enable a blind person
to drive a car, not simply sit passively in a car that drives
itself. These are the expressions of Dr. Maurer's leadership. Yet
at the heart of his leadership is his spirit and his belief in
every blind person. He has inspired and encouraged us, faced the
most difficult challenges with resolution and strength, and has
kept us together, never letting us waiver in our belief in our own
right to live normal, productive lives.
On Saturday afternoon Dr. Maurer told the board that it is
his intention not to seek reelection to the presidency next
summer at our national convention. He feels the time is
right to transition to the next president, the next individual
who can lead us for a quarter century or more. Dr. Maurer
is in good health and believes that it is important that
he step down from the presidency while he is able to assist
with the transition. Dr. Maurer told the board that he
plans to support Mr. Mark Riccobono as the next president
of the National Federation of the Blind. Mr. Riccobono
presently serves as the executive director of the Jernigan
Institute. He is an accomplished individual with the strength
and wisdom to assume the serious responsibility of leading
our movement. He has brought to his work the imagination
and competency we demand from our president. We are truly
fortunate that within the Federation we have individuals
who are able and willing to give all they have to furthering
our move toward true equality. The demands of the NFB
presidency are unimaginable. We require our leader to give
all of his time, all of his imagination, and all of his
personal reserve of judgment to leading our organization.
This is what Dr. Maurer has done for the past twenty-seven
and a half years, and it is what Mark Riccobono will do
during his presidency. This transition brings to an end
one chapter in our history and what a glorious chapter it has been.
We cannot face the loss of Dr. Maurer's leadership without a sense
of sadness; but the transition to a new president is not just the
absence of what we had before. The transition heralds a new chapter
in our history and, with it, new opportunities -- the chance to
take all that has come before and build something bigger and more
powerful than we have ever known. Please join me in thanking Dr.
Maurer for his leadership, his friendship, and his faithful devotion
to our cause; and please join me in wishing Mark Riccobono the very
best as he seeks to take the foundation that is all that has come
before and build upon it the next great chapter in our history.
This is what Fred Schroeder wrote, and it eloquently
articulates many of the accomplishments of our president
and our hopes for his successor. The discussion that
concluded the board meeting was more personal, with members
trying to convey what our president has meant in their
lives and in their development as leaders. The heartfelt
remembrances reflected both the sadness that comes with
the closing of an era and the tremendous possibility that
comes with the beginning of another. This meeting will live
in my memory as one of the most significant board meetings
of the Federation I've ever been blessed to attend. I found
myself grateful to have watched as President Maurer received
the accolades for his hard work and visionary leadership
and to observe the commitment shown to Mark Riccobono
because of our belief in his ability to maintain the most
treasured traditions of the Federation while leading us in
the evolving challenges of the twenty-first century. Like
the transition begun in 1986, this one will generate many
questions and a good deal of discussion about what will
change and what will remain the same. But, through it all,
the bedrock principles of the Federation will keep us on
course, and those we elect will ensure that our organization
will continue to be the most vibrant, energetic, and positive
force for change in the lives of blind people both here
and abroad.
----------
Who Are the Blind Who Lead the Blind?
From the Editor: Though brief profiles of the members of
the current board of directors can be found on our website
at any time, we periodically revise and reprint in the
Braille Monitor a compilation we have used for years. It
includes profiles of Dr. tenBroek, Dr. Jernigan, and members
of the current NFB board of directors. It is high time to
provide it again, so here it is:
Introduction
The National Federation of the Blind has become by far the
most significant force in the affairs of the blind today,
and its actions have had an impact on many other groups
and programs. The Federation's president, Marc Maurer,
radiates confidence and persuasiveness. He says, "If I can
find twenty people who care about a thing, then we can get
it done. And if there are two hundred, two thousand, or
twenty thousand, that's even better." The National Federation
of the Blind is a civil rights movement with all that the
term implies. President Maurer says, "You can't expect to
obtain freedom by having somebody else hand it to you. You
have to do the job yourself. The French could not have won
the American Revolution for us. That would merely have
shifted the governing authority from one colonial power to
another. So too we the blind are the only ones who can win
freedom for the blind, which is both frightening and
reassuring. If we don't get out and do what we must, we
have no one to blame but ourselves. We have control of the
essential elements." Although many organizations and agencies
for the blind exist in the United States today, there is
only one National Federation of the Blind. This organization
was established in 1940 when the blind of seven states --
California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
and Wisconsin -- sent delegates to its first convention at
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Since that time progress has
been rapid and steady. The Federation is recognized by
blind men and women throughout the entire country as their
primary means of joint expression; and today -- with active
affiliates in every state, the District of Columbia, and
Puerto Rico -- it is the primary voice of the nation's
blind. To explain this spectacular growth, three questions
must be asked and answered: (1) What are the conditions in
the general environment of the blind which have impelled
them to organize? (2) What are the purpose, belief, and
philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind? (3)
Who are its leaders, and what are their qualifications to
understand and solve the problems of blindness? Even a
brief answer to these questions is instructive. When the
Federation came into being in 1940, the outlook for the
blind was anything but bright. The nation's welfare system
was so discouraging to individual initiative that those
forced to accept public assistance had little hope of ever
achieving self-support again, and those who sought competitive
employment in regular industry or the professions found
most of the doors barred against them. The universal goodwill
expressed toward the blind was not the wholesome goodwill
of respect felt toward equals; it was the misguided goodwill
of pity felt toward inferiors. In effect the system said
to the blind, "Sit on the sidelines of life. This game is
not for you. If you have creative talents, we are sorry,
but we cannot use them." The Federation came into being to
combat these expressions of discrimination and to promote
new ways of thought concerning blindness. Although great
progress has been made toward the achievement of these
goals, much still remains to be done. The Federation
believes that blind people are essentially normal and that
blindness in itself is not a mental or psychological
handicap. It can be reduced to the level of a mere physical
nuisance. Legal, economic, and social discrimination based
upon the false assumption that the blind are somehow
different from the sighted must be abolished, and equal
opportunity must be made available to blind people. Because
of their personal experience with blindness, the blind
themselves are best qualified to lead the way in solving
their own problems, but the general public should be invited
to participate in finding solutions. Upon these fundamentals
the National Federation of the Blind predicates its
philosophy. As for the leadership of the organization,
all of the officers and members of the board of directors
are blind, and all give generously of their time and
resources in promoting the work of the Federation. The
board consists of seventeen elected members, five of whom
are the constitutional officers of the organization. These
members of the board of directors represent a wide
cross-section of the blind population of the United States.
Their backgrounds are different, and their experiences vary
widely; but they are drawn together by the common bond of
having met blindness individually and successfully in their
own lives and by their united desire to see other blind
people have the opportunity to do likewise. A profile of
the leadership of the organization shows why it is so
effective and demonstrates the progress made by blind people
during the past half-century and more--for in the story of
the lives of these leaders can be found the greatest
testimonial to the soundness of the Federation's philosophy.
The cumulative record of their individual achievements is
an overwhelming proof, leading to an inescapable conclusion.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Jacobus tenBroek]
Jacobus tenBroek
Founder of the National Federation of the Blind and First
President
Author, Jurist, Professor
The moving force in the founding of the National Federation
of the Blind, and its spiritual and intellectual father,
was Jacobus tenBroek. Born in 1911, young tenBroek (the
son of prairie homesteaders in Canada) lost the sight of
one eye as the result of a bow-and-arrow accident at the
age of seven. His remaining eyesight deteriorated until at
the age of fourteen he was totally blind. Shortly afterward
he and his family traveled to Berkeley so that he could
attend the California School for the Blind. Within three
years he was an active part of the local organization of
the blind. By 1934 he had joined Dr. Newel Perry and others
to form the California Council of the Blind, which later
became the National Federation of the Blind of California.
This organization was a prototype for the nationwide
federation that tenBroek would form six years later.
The same year the Federation was founded (1940), Jacobus
tenBroek received his doctorate in jurisprudence from the
University of California, completed a year as Brandeis
Research Fellow at Harvard Law School, and was appointed
to the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School.
Two years later he began teaching at the University of
California at Berkeley, becoming a full professor in 1953,
chairman of the department of speech in 1955, and professor
of political science in 1963. During this period Professor
tenBroek published several books and more than fifty articles
and monographs in the fields of welfare, government, and
law--establishing a reputation as one of the nation's
foremost scholars on matters of constitutional law. One of
his books, Prejudice, War, and the Constitution, won the
Woodrow Wilson Award of the American Political Science
Association in 1955 as the best book of the year on government
and democracy. Other books are California's Dual System of
Family Law (1964), Hope Deferred: Public Welfare and the
Blind (1959), The Antislavery Origins of the Fourteenth
Amendment (1951)--revised and republished in 1965 as Equal
Under Law, and The Law of the Poor (edited in 1966). In
the course of his academic career Professor tenBroek was
a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral
Sciences at Palo Alto and was twice the recipient of
fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1947 he
earned the degree of S.J.D. from Harvard Law School. In
addition he was awarded honorary degrees by two institutions
of higher learning. Dr. tenBroek's lifelong companion was
his devoted wife Hazel. Together they raised three children
and worked inseparably on research, writing, and academic
and Federation projects. Until her declining health prevented
travel, Mrs. tenBroek continued as an active member of the
organized blind movement. She died October 7, 2005. In
1950 Dr. tenBroek was made a member of the California State
Board of Social Welfare by Governor Earl Warren. Later
reappointed to the board three times, he was elected its
chairman in 1960 and served in that capacity until 1963.
The brilliance of Jacobus tenBroek's career led some skeptics
to suggest that his achievements were beyond the reach of
what they called the "ordinary blind person." What tenBroek
recognized in himself was not that he was exceptional, but
that he was normal--that his blindness had nothing to do
with whether he could be a successful husband and father,
do scholarly research, write a book, make a speech, guide
students engaged in social action, or otherwise lead a
productive life. Jacobus tenBroek died of cancer at the
age of fifty-six in 1968. His successor, Kenneth Jernigan,
in a memorial address, said truly of him: "The relationship
of this man to the organized blind movement, which he
brought into being in the United States and around the
world, was such that it would be equally accurate to say
that the man was the embodiment of the movement or that
the movement was the expression of the man. "For tens of
thousands of blind Americans over more than a quarter of
a century, he was leader, mentor, spokesman, and philosopher.
He gave to the organized blind movement the force of his
intellect and the shape of his dreams. He made it the symbol
of a cause barely imagined before his coming: the cause of
self-expression, self-direction, and self-sufficiency on
the part of blind people. Step by step, year by year, action
by action, he made that cause succeed."
[PHOTO CAPTION: Kenneth Jernigan]
Kenneth Jernigan President Emeritus
Teacher, Writer, Administrator
Kenneth Jernigan was a leader in the National Federation
of the Blind for more than forty-six years. He was president
(with one brief interruption) from 1968 until July of 1986.
Even after Jernigan ceased to be president of the Federation,
he continued as one of its principal leaders until his
death on October 12, 1998. He was loved and respected by
tens of thousands -- members and nonmembers of the Federation,
both blind and sighted. Born in 1926, Kenneth Jernigan
grew up on a farm in central Tennessee. He received his
elementary and secondary education at the school for the
blind in Nashville. After high school Jernigan managed a
furniture shop in Beech Grove, Tennessee, making all the
furniture and operating the business. In the fall of 1945
Jernigan matriculated at Tennessee Technological University
in Cookeville. Active in campus affairs from the outset,
he was soon elected to office in his class and to important
positions in other student organizations. Jernigan graduated
with honors in 1948 with a BS degree in social science. In
1949 he received a master's degree in English from Peabody
College in Nashville, where he subsequently completed
additional graduate study. While at Peabody he was a staff
writer for the school newspaper, co-founder of an independent
literary magazine, and member of the Writers' Club. In 1949
he received the Captain Charles W. Browne Award, at that
time presented annually by the American Foundation for the
Blind to the nation's outstanding blind student. Jernigan
then spent four years as a teacher of English at the
Tennessee School for the Blind. During this period he became
active in the Tennessee Association of the Blind (now the
National Federation of the Blind of Tennessee). He was
elected to the vice presidency of the organization in 1950
and to the presidency in 1951. In that position he planned
the 1952 annual convention of the National Federation of
the Blind, which was held in Nashville, and he then planned
every NFB national convention through 1998. In 1952 Jernigan
was first elected to the NFB board of directors, and in
1953 he was appointed to the faculty of the California
Orientation Center for the Blind in Oakland, where he played
a major role in developing the best program of its kind
then in existence.
From 1958 until 1978 he served as director of the Iowa
State Commission for the Blind. In this capacity he was
responsible for administering state rehabilitation programs,
home teaching, home industries, an orientation and adjustment
center, and library services for the blind and physically
handicapped. The improvements made in services to the
blind of Iowa under the Jernigan administration have never
before or since been equaled anywhere in the country. In
1960 the Federation presented Jernigan with its Newel Perry
Award for outstanding accomplishment in services for the
blind. In 1968 he was given a special citation by the
president of the United States. Harold Russell, the chairman
of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped,
came to Des Moines to present the award. He said: "If a
person must be blind, it is better to be blind in Iowa than
anywhere else in the nation or in the world. This statement,"
the citation went on to say, "sums up the story of the Iowa
Commission for the Blind during the Jernigan years and more
pertinently of its director, Kenneth Jernigan. That narrative
is much more than a success story. It is the story of high
aspiration magnificently accomplished--of an impossible
dream become reality." Jernigan received too many honors
and awards to enumerate individually, including honorary
doctorates from four institutions of higher education. He
was also asked to serve as a special consultant to or member
of numerous boards and advisory bodies. The most notable
among these are member of the National Advisory Committee
on Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
(appointed in 1972 by the secretary of the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare); special consultant on
services for the blind (appointed in 1975 by the federal
commissioner of rehabilitation); advisor on museum programs
for blind visitors to the Smithsonian Institution (appointed
in 1975); special advisor to the White House Conference on
Library and Information Services (appointed in 1977 by
President Gerald Ford). In July of 1990 Jernigan received
an award for distinguished service from the president of
the United States. To date he has been the only person
ever to be invited to deliver keynote addresses to the
primary gatherings of the two worldwide blindness organizations
in a single year: the fourth quadrennial meeting of the
World Blind Union in August 1996 and the annual meeting of
the International Council for the Education of the Visually
Impaired in spring 1997. In 1998 he received the Lifetime
Achievement Award from the National Council of State Agencies
for the Blind, the first ever International Leadership
Award from the American Foundation for the Blind, and the
Canadian National Institute for the Blind's Winston Gordon
Award for his leadership in establishing Newsline for the
Blind[(R)]. Kenneth Jernigan's writings and speeches on
blindness are better known and have touched the lives of
more blind people than those of any other person writing
today. From 1991 until his death he edited the NFB's
immensely popular series of paperbacks known as the Kernel
Books. On July 23, 1975, he spoke before the National Press
Club in Washington, DC, and his address was broadcast live
throughout the nation on National Public Radio. Through
the years he appeared repeatedly on network radio and
television interview programs. In 1978 Jernigan moved to
Baltimore to become executive director of the American
Brotherhood for the Blind (now the American Action Fund
for Blind Children and Adults) and director of the National
Center for the Blind. As president of the National Federation
of the Blind at that time, he led the organization through
the most impressive period of growth in its history to
date. The creation and development of the National Center
for the Blind and the NFB's expansion into its position
today as the most influential voice and force in the affairs
of the blind stand as the culmination of Kenneth Jernigan's
lifework and a tribute to his brilliance and commitment to
the blind of this nation. From 1987 to 1997 he played an
active role internationally as president of the North
America/Caribbean region of the World Blind Union. He
traveled widely and spoke frequently before international
groups about blindness and the NFB's positive philosophy
that changes lives and society. Jernigan's dynamic wife
Mary Ellen remains an active member of the Federation. She
works with dedication in the movement and is known and
loved by thousands of Federationists throughout the country.
Speaking at a convention of the National Federation of the
Blind, Jernigan said of the organization and its philosophy
(and also of his own philosophy): "As we look ahead, the
world holds more hope than gloom for us--and, best of all,
the future is in our own hands. For the first time in
history we can be our own masters and do with our lives
what we will; and the sighted (as they learn who we are
and what we are) can and will work with us as equals and
partners. In other words we are capable of full membership
in society, and the sighted are capable of accepting us as
such -- and, for the most part, they want to. "We want no
Uncle Toms -- no sellouts, no apologists, no rationalizers;
but we also want no militant hell-raisers or unbudging
radicals. One will hurt our cause as much as the other. We
must win true equality in society, but we must not dehumanize
ourselves in the process; and we must not forget the graces
and amenities, the compassions and courtesies which comprise
civilization itself and distinguish people from animals
and life from existence. "Let people call us what they
will and say what they please about our motives and our
movement. There is only one way for the blind to achieve
first-class citizenship and true equality. It must be done
through collective action and concerted effort; and that
means the National Federation of the Blind. There is no
other way, and those who say otherwise are either uninformed
or unwilling to face the facts. "We are the strongest
force in the affairs of the blind today, and we must also
recognize the responsibilities of power and the fact that
we must build a world that is worth living in when the war
is over--and, for that matter, while we are fighting it.
In short, we must use both love and a club, and we must
have sense enough to know when to do which--long on
compassion, short on hatred; and, above all, not using our
philosophy as a cop-out for cowardice or inaction or
rationalization. We know who we are and what we must do--and
we will never go back. The public is not against us. Our
determination proclaims it; our gains confirm it; our
humanity demands it."
[PHOTO CAPTION: Marc Maurer]
Marc Maurer
President Attorney and Executive
Born in 1951, Marc Maurer was the second in a family of
six children. His blindness was caused by overexposure to
oxygen after his premature birth, but he and his parents
were determined that this should not prevent him from living
a full and normal life. He began his education at the Iowa
Braille and Sight Saving School, where he became an avid
Braille reader. In the fifth grade he returned home to
Boone, Iowa, where he attended parochial schools. During
high school (having taken all the courses in the curriculum),
he simultaneously took classes at the junior college.
Maurer ran three different businesses before finishing high
school: a paper route, a lawn care business, and an enterprise
producing and marketing maternity garter belts designed by
his mother. This last venture was so successful that his
younger brother took over the business when Maurer left
home. In the summer of 1969, after graduating from high
school, Maurer enrolled as a student at the Orientation
and Adjustment Center of the Iowa Commission for the Blind
and attended his first convention of the NFB. He was
delighted to discover in both places that blind people and
what they thought mattered. This was a new phenomenon in
his experience, and it changed his life. Kenneth Jernigan
was director of the Iowa Commission for the Blind at the
time, and Maurer soon grew to admire and respect him. When
Maurer expressed an interest in overhauling a car engine,
the Commission for the Blind purchased the necessary
equipment. Maurer completed that project and actually worked
for a time as an automobile mechanic. He believes today
that mastering engine repair played an important part in
changing his attitudes about blindness. Maurer graduated
cum laude from the University of Notre Dame in 1974. As an
undergraduate he took an active part in campus life,
including election to the Honor Society. Then he enrolled
at the University of Indiana School of Law, where he received
his Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1977. Maurer was elected
president of the Student Division of the National Federation
of the Blind in 1971 and reelected in 1973 and 1975. Also
in 1971 at the age of twenty he was elected vice president
of the National Federation of the Blind of Indiana. He was
elected president in 1973 and reelected in 1975. During
law school Maurer worked summers for the office of the
secretary of state of Indiana. After graduation he moved
to Toledo, Ohio, to accept a position as the director of
the Senior Legal Assistance Project operated by ABLE
(Advocates for Basic Legal Equality). In 1978 Maurer moved
to Washington, DC, to become an attorney with the Rates
and Routes Division in the office of the general counsel
of the Civil Aeronautics Board. Initially he worked on
rates cases but soon advanced to dealing with international
matters and then to doing research and writing opinions on
constitutional issues and board action. He wrote opinions
for the chairman and made appearances before the full board
to discuss those opinions. In 1981 he went into private
practice in Baltimore, Maryland, where he specialized in
civil litigation and property matters. But increasingly he
concentrated on representing blind individuals and groups
in the courts. He has now become one of the most experienced
and knowledgeable attorneys in the country regarding the
laws, precedents, and administrative rulings concerning
civil rights and discrimination against the blind. He is
a member of the Bar in Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, and Maryland
and a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United
States. Maurer has always been active in civic and political
affairs, having run for the state legislature from Baltimore.
Through the years he has also served on the board of
directors of his apartment complex's tenants association,
the board of his community association, and the school
board of his children's school. In 1981 Maurer was elected
president of the National Association of Blind Lawyers and
served in that office until 1985. From 1984 until 1986 he
served as president of the National Federation of the Blind
of Maryland. An important companion in Maurer's activities
and a leader in her own right is his wife Patricia. The
Maurers were married in 1973, and they have two children--David
Patrick, born March 10, 1984, and Dianna Marie, born July
12, 1987. At the 1985 convention in Louisville, Kentucky,
Kenneth Jernigan announced that he would not stand for
re-election as president of the National Federation of the
Blind the following year, and he recommended Marc Maurer
as his successor. In Kansas City in 1986 the Convention
elected Maurer by resounding acclamation, and he has served
as president ever since. From 1997 to 2000 he also served
as president of the North America/Caribbean Region of the
World Blind Union, and he chaired the WBU Committee on the
Restoration of the Louis Braille Birthplace in Coupvray,
France. In 2004 he became vice president of the World Blind
Union North America/Caribbean Region, and in 2006 reassumed
the presidency. Maurer was honored with the Maryland Black
Caucus's Leadership Award in 1985, the United States
Presidential Medal for Leadership in 1990, the 1990 Heritage
Award from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind,
and the Baltimore Business Journal's 1999 Innovation Award
for Excellence in Workplace Technology. Recent honors
include the 2002 VME Robert Dole Award and the Daily Record's
2002 Innovator of the Year award. He joined President George
W. Bush in the Oval Office in July of 2001 to celebrate
the success of the NFB Everest Expedition and once again
when President Bush signed into law the Help America Vote
Act of 2002. He received honorary degrees from California's
Menlo College in 1998 and the University of Louisville in
1999. In 1987 he delivered an address at the Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard University, and in 2000 he was
invited to deliver addresses on civil rights at Oxford
University and Birmingham University in the United Kingdom.
As president of the National Federation of the Blind, Maurer
has boldly led the organization into a new test of its
resolve, beginning with the visionary expansion of the
National Center for the Blind--the National Federation of
the Blind Jernigan Institute, which was completed in the
spring of 2004. The facility, located on the grounds of
the National Center, has added more than 170,000 square
feet to the NFB's headquarters. The Institute, which is
the first of its kind, conceived and built by the blind
for the blind, is developing innovative education,
technologies, products, and services that support independence
for the world's blind. One of the early products of the
Institute was the Kurzweil - National Federation of the
Blind handheld reading machine, produced in conjunction
with the noted futurist and inventor, Raymond Kurzweil.
Maurer's unswerving determination to succeed and his absolute
conviction that the organized blind are the best-equipped
people to solve the problems facing them have set the tone
and are guiding the organization into this exciting new
period of growth and accomplishment.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Fredric Schroeder] Fredric Schroeder First Vice
President NFB of Virginia President
Research Professor, Orientation and Mobility Leader
Dr. Fredric K. Schroeder was born in Lima, Peru, in 1957.
He and his brother Steve were adopted and moved to the
United States when he was nineteen months old. Born with
normal vision, Dr. Schroeder became blind at the age of
seven after suffering a severe allergic reaction known as
Stephens-Johnson's Syndrome. As a result, his vision
deteriorated over a nine-year period, leaving him totally
blind at the age of sixteen. He attended public school in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, but received no special education
instruction in Braille or any alternative techniques that
would have allowed him to function competitively. Although
raised in New Mexico, Dr. Schroeder spent much time in San
Francisco receiving medical treatment in an effort to save
his vision. As a result, he was living in California when
he became totally blind. For this reason, following graduation
from high school, Dr. Schroeder attended the Orientation
Center for the Blind in Albany, California. There he found
the Federation, and his involvement in the organization
has been central to his life and work ever since. Through
the Federation he met blind people from all walks of life
who encouraged him, eventually convincing him that he could
live a normal, productive life. Dr. Schroeder attended San
Francisco State University, earning a Bachelor's Degree in
Psychology in 1977 and a master's degree in Special Education
in 1978. After completing his university studies, he went
to work teaching cane travel in the Nebraska Services for
the Visually Impaired's orientation center in Lincoln. For
the next two years he returned each summer to California
to complete postgraduate studies in orientation and mobility
to become eligible for national certification as a cane
travel teacher. This was revolutionary at the time. He was
the first blind person ever to be admitted to a university
program in orientation and mobility. Although he graduated
with distinction, he was denied certification solely on
the basis of blindness. Nevertheless, that did not stop
him from continuing with his career or education. He earned
a PhD in Education Administration from the University of
New Mexico in May 1994. His professional achievements are
impressive. In 1980 Dr. Schroeder returned to New Mexico
to work as a teacher of blind children for the Albuquerque
Public Schools. Knowing how important the Federation had
been in his own life, he immediately began integrating
Federation philosophy into his work. In a year he was
running the program for blind children across the district.
The results were dramatic and the program so effective that
in the early 1980s the district's program for blind children
was featured on the Today Show. Although New Mexico programs
for blind children were the finest in the nation, services
for blind adults were among the poorest. As president of
the New Mexico affiliate of the National Federation of the
Blind, Dr. Schroeder was deeply troubled by the lack of
employment opportunities for blind people in the state.
In 1986 after a long, bitter legislative fight, the Federation
succeeded in establishing the New Mexico Commission for the Blind.
Dr. Schroeder was appointed the commission's first executive
director, giving him the opportunity to bring Federation philosophy
into the work of the newly founded agency. In a short time the
program was transformed, and soon the New Mexico Commission for
the Blind stood out as the most progressive and successful
rehabilitation agency in the country. Under Dr. Schroeder's leadership
blind people in New Mexico were prepared to go to work in good jobs
-- in fact, jobs paying so well that they had higher average earnings
than blind people anywhere else in the nation.
Dr. Schroeder's accomplishments did not go unnoticed. In
1994 President Bill Clinton appointed Schroeder to serve
as the ninth commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services
Administration (RSA) within the US Department of Education.
As RSA commissioner he administered a $2.5 billion dollar
program providing services to more than one million people
with disabilities each year. He focused on high-quality
employment -- better jobs, jobs with a future, jobs enabling
people to achieve a good and equitable standard of living.
His crowning achievement as RSA commissioner was ending
the shameful practice of having state vocational rehabilitation
agencies place blind people in sheltered workshops, often
at subminimum wages. Following his service as RSA
commissioner, he joined the faculty of the Interwork Institute at
San Diego State University. He now works as a research professor
specializing in leadership and public policy in vocational
rehabilitation.
His involvement in the National Federation of the Blind
continues. On July 5, 2006, Dr. Schroeder was unanimously
elected first vice president of the National Federation of
the Blind. In addition to his service on the Federation's
board of directors, he serves as the president of the
National Federation of the Blind of Virginia and often
represents the Federation at national and international
meetings and conferences. Dr. Schroeder has held a number
of leadership positions internationally. He was the founding
president of the International Council on English Braille
and presently serves as the first vice president of the
World Blind Union. In his role with the World Blind Union,
Dr. Schroeder participated in the drafting of the UN
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and
on the development of an international treaty to allow
books for the blind to be shared internationally. As World
Blind Union first vice president he is the lead negotiator
in developing a global technical regulation that will
establish a minimum sound standard for electric and
hybrid-electric cars. Dr. Schroeder is married to Cathy
Nusser Schroeder. They have two children, Carrie, born in
1981, and Matthew, born in 1983. Dr. Schroeder is the first
to admit that it is the Federation that has made the
difference in his life, enabling him to achieve professionally
and to live a normal, productive life. In his own words,
"We still have much work to do. Far too many blind people
still face discrimination, still live in isolation and
poverty, still lack access to the encouragement and training
they need to live productive, integrated lives. In spite
of all that remains to be done, because of the National
Federation of the Blind, opportunities are better for blind
people today than at any time in history. The change we
have made cannot be turned back, cannot be taken away. We
have changed forever what it means to be blind, and we and
society are better off as a result." [PHOTO CAPTION: Ron
Brown]
Ron Brown NFB of Indiana President
Businessman, Advocate
Ron Brown was born in Gary, Indiana, the first of eight
children, to Marzette and Myra Brown on May 15, 1956. When
he was a senior in high school, he became blind after he
was shot on his way home from a basketball game. At the
time he knew nothing about blindness and was overwhelmed
by the feeling that his entire life had been radically
changed in an instant. One of the first painful lessons he
learned was that many of his friends could not deal with
his blindness and stayed away from him. Luckily he began
to make new friends, members of the National Federation of
the Blind. They became inspiring role models for Ron,
teaching him that it was respectable to be blind and that
he could continue to strive for the goals he had set for
himself. Armed with this newfound freedom, Ron graduated
from Ball State University with a bachelor of science degree
in health science. He then went to work at Tradewinds
Rehabilitation Center in Indiana, where he met his wife
Jean, who was on the staff. Eventually he was offered a
job in the Business Enterprise Program. He had always wanted
to own his own business, and this gave him the opportunity
to do so. He has now been in business for himself for thirty
years. Recently Ron returned to school and earned a master's
degree in educational psychology with a certification in
orientation and mobility from Louisiana Tech University.
He now owns a second business, Cane and Able Orientation
and Mobility, teaching cane travel to blind people in the
state of Indiana. As Ron Brown has developed and matured
in his personal life, his commitment to and service in the
National Federation of the Blind have deepened as well. In
the early years he was a chapter president and was then
elected to the NFB of Indiana's board of directors. He was
first elected president of the affiliate in 1996 and has
been reelected every two years since. In 2001 he was elected
to serve on the NFB board of directors. Looking back, Ron
Brown says, "Becoming a member of the national board is
the fulfillment of a life dream. I have been an advocate
for blind people for more than twenty-five years, and with
every passing year my commitment to serving the blind of
this nation increases. My life indeed changed the night I
became blind, but with the perspective I now have, I must
say that it was for the better."
[PHOTO CAPTION: James Gashel]
James R. Gashel
Secretary
Advocate, Ambassador, Executive
Jim Gashel was born in 1946 and grew up in Iowa. After his
early introduction to the National Federation of the Blind
as Kenneth Jernigan's student at the Iowa Commission for
the Blind during the 1960s, he has been devoted to serving
the blind community in various capacities. A 1969 graduate
of the University of Northern Iowa with work toward a
master's degree in Public Administration at the University
of Iowa, Jim started his career teaching speech and English
for one year in Pipestone, Minnesota. He then accepted a
position as assistant director at the Iowa Commission for
the Blind in Des Moines. With that move he found his calling
is working with the blind and finding ways of solving the
problems that face them as individuals and as a minority.
On January 1, 1974, Jim joined the staff of the National
Federation of the Blind as chief of the Washington office,
where he became one of the best known advocates for the
blind of the United States, combining his commitment to
blind people with his interest in the political process.
As the Federation's scope and influence evolved, so did
his roles and responsibilities. In his professional career
of almost thirty-four years with the Federation, he held
the positions of chief of the Washington office, director
of governmental affairs, and executive director for strategic
initiatives. Jim's Federation work has led to significant
changes in virtually every law directly affecting blind
Americans: the Social Security Act, the Rehabilitation Act,
the Randolph-Sheppard Act, the Americans with Disabilities
Act, the Copyright Act, the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, and the Help America Vote Act. In addition
to championing these causes, Jim has won the love and
respect of the thousands of blind men and women across
America who have directly benefited from his informed and
effective personal advocacy. No matter what his position,
through his drive and devotion to Federationism, Jim has
earned the informal title of the organization's non-lawyer
lawyer. With his first wife Arlene, Jim is the father of
three adult children and the grandfather of six. His daughter
Andrea Beasley has four children, and his son Eric and his
daughter Valerie each have two children. During Jim's
service at the NFB, he received the Commissioner's Award
for Outstanding Leadership in Rehabilitation Services to
the Disabled, the highest honor presented by the commissioner
of the United States Rehabilitation Services Administration.
He is also a recipient of the secretary of labor's Outstanding
American Award. In 2001 Jim and his second wife, Dr. Betsy
Zaborowski, jointly received the NFB's highest honor, the
Jacobus tenBroek Award, honoring them for their achievements
through decades of leadership in work with the blind. In
November, 2007, Jim and Betsy moved from Baltimore to
Denver, Colorado, but Betsy soon died after a recurrence
of the condition -- retinal blastoma -- which had caused
her blindness from childhood. In September, 2012, Jim
married Susan Kern, now Susan Gashel. Their marriage occurred
a few months after Susan had returned from Colorado after
retiring as an assistant attorney general in the state of
Hawaii. Beyond continuing Jim's active work on behalf of
the blind through involvement in the Federation, and Susan's
work to uphold the rights and promote opportunities for
blind Randolph-Sheppard vendors, Jim and Susan are passionate
about downhill skiing and all the Rocky Mountains have to
offer near where they live in the Vail valley of Colorado.
Beyond his volunteer activities, Jim serves as vice president
of business development at K-NFB Reading Technology, Inc.,
formed in 2005 as a joint venture of Kurzweil Technologies
and the National Federation of the Blind. While serving as
the Federation's executive director for strategic initiatives,
he led the public introduction and launch of the
Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader, the
world's first truly portable text-to-speech reading device
for the blind. As part of this effort he raised and
administered the funds necessary to support pre-release
beta testing, product announcement, and public promotional
efforts to bring the product to market in 2006. Jim's
employment with K-NFB Reading Technology, Inc., brings him
full circle in his career since, after first meeting Ray
Kurzweil in April 1975, he also organized and raised the
funds necessary to test and launch the original Kurzweil
Reading Machine, released in 1977 as the world's first
text-to-speech reading system for the blind. Jim was
elected to the NFB's national board of directors in 2008
to fill an unexpired term and was reelected in 2009. Then
he was subsequently elected to the position of national
secretary, a position he has held since 2010. Serving in
each of these capacities, he brings to the board both
expertise and contacts in the blindness field and an abiding
commitment to the work of the NFB. In accepting his 2001
Jacobus tenBroek Award, Jim offered comments that remain
relevant today and reflect his approach to our mission.
"All I would ask is that all of you remember that it's all
of our responsibilities to go out and work for the movement.
We can't all go out and climb a mountain like Erik
[Weihenmayer] did, and we can't all do the wonderful things
that every one of you do all the time, or raise five or
six million dollars like Betsy did, but we can all work
for this movement. We all have a place in it." Jim's place
is absolutely unique.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Pam Allen]
Pam Allen Treasurer NFB of
Louisiana President
Nonprofit Agency Administrator, Advocate, Community Leader
Pam Dubel was born in 1970 and grew up in Lancaster, New
York. She became blind when she was approximately two years
old as a result of retinal blastoma, a type of cancer.
Although her parents were shocked by her loss of sight,
they fortunately realized that she was still the same child
except that she could no longer see. Through love and high
expectations, they instilled in Pam a sense of pride and
confidence in her ability to succeed. They constantly taught
her that her blindness was not a limitation to achieving
her goals and dreams. Growing up as the youngest of six
children also helped her learn to be independent. Since
she was the youngest, nobody, especially the brother a year
older than she, let her get away with anything. Pam attended
a private Catholic school, where she was the only blind
student. Her itinerant teacher provided a sound foundation
in Braille, which helped her excel in academics. Her parents
expected her to do her best and to engage in activities
that would make her a confident and well-rounded person.
She participated in horseback riding, skiing, and cheerleading
during elementary school. During high school her interests
shifted to performing in chorus, doing community service,
and having fun with her friends. While growing up, Pam
had limited contact with other blind people her age. In
general she had no desire to associate with other blind
people. She understood that every high school senior
experiences some trepidation about the transition to
adulthood and independence. However, as high school graduation
approached, she began to grapple with questions that her
sighted peers couldn't answer. She planned to attend college,
and she hoped that she would eventually find a job, but
she secretly wondered if she would truly be able to obtain
employment. After all, she had had difficulty finding
part-time work during high school. Her loving family and
friends encouraged her, but she had questions that went
unanswered. Although she entered college with some
apprehension, she was determined to achieve her best. Her
small liberal arts college provided an exciting environment
in which to learn and grow. But those unanswered questions
continued to nag at her. If people were amazed that she
could accomplish the most insignificant tasks, would they
ever treat her as an equal? She realized that she had to
meet other blind people with more experience than she who
could serve as role models. Her search exposed her to a
wide variety of groups and organizations of and for the
blind. However, not until she attended a student seminar
hosted by the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio did
she begin to find the answers for which she had been
searching. Although she didn't realize it at the time, that
seminar marked the beginning of a new chapter of her life.
She met Barbara Pierce, president of the NFB of Ohio, who
told Pam about the Louisiana Center for the Blind. More
than that, she spoke with Joanne Wilson, its director, who
arranged for Pam to complete an internship at the center
the following May. As soon as that was completed, Joanne
invited her to work as a counselor in the children's summer
program that year. Pam was a 1991 National Federation of
the Blind scholarship winner when she was a senior at
Denison University, where she majored in psychology and
minored in women's studies. She served as vice president
of the Ohio Association of Blind Students and as secretary
of the National Association of Blind Students, and throughout
college she worked summers for Joanne Wilson at the Louisiana
Center for the Blind with the Children's Program. After
graduation from college Pam decided to become a student at
the Louisiana Center for the Blind. She recognized that
she still needed to gain some confidence in her skills and
in her ability to be a successful blind person. Since 2001
Pam Allen has served as the director of the Louisiana Center
for the Blind, one of three NFB adult rehabilitation centers.
Prior to becoming the director, she served as the director
of youth services, working with blind infants and toddlers
and their parents, supervising the training of classroom
aides to teach Braille throughout Louisiana, coordinating
summer camps, and developing innovative programs for blind
children and teenagers. People often ask her what makes
the Louisiana Center for the Blind such a special place.
She responds, "What sets our alumni apart from those of
other kinds of rehabilitation facilities? The answer is
that, by attending our center and the other centers conducted
by Federationists, students are exposed to the National
Federation of the Blind and its philosophy. The NFB is more
than an organization; it is a loving family. Regardless of
where you are, you can find members of the NFB who can give
you support and encouragement when you need it. The NFB
also provides a constant supply of mentors and role models
who challenge you to set goals for yourself. Lives are
positively changed every day at the Center because of the
philosophy of the NFB." Allen recalls that she used to
believe that she did not need other blind people. She
thought that being independent meant succeeding without
the help of others. Her involvement with the National
Federation of the Blind has taught her that this is not
true. She has learned that she needs reinforcement from
her blind colleagues and friends. Pam lives in Ruston,
Louisiana, with her husband Roland Allen, a dedicated
Federation leader and a gifted orientation and mobility
instructor at the center. She is currently the president
of the NFB of Louisiana and secretary of the National
Association of Blind Rehabilitation Professionals. In July
of 2002 she was elected to the National Federation of the
Blind board of directors. Four years later, in 2006, she
was elected to serve as treasurer of the National Federation
of the Blind. In 2012, Pam and Roland received the prestigious
Jacobus tenBroek Award in recognition of their distinguished
service in the Federation. Allen is also involved in a
variety of community and professional organizations,
including the Chamber of Commerce and as a gubernatorial
appointee to the Louisiana Rehabilitation Council. She
says, "Being elected to the national board has allowed me
to give back and to spread the message of our movement. It
is an incredible honor and privilege to serve!"
[PHOTO CAPTION: Amy Buresh]
Amy Buresh NFB of Nebraska
President
Rehabilitation Counselor, Advocate, and Mother
Today Amy Rut Buresh says, "My blindness is simply another of my
characteristics like my auburn hair." She didn't always feel that
way. Amy Rut was born prematurely June 4, 1974, in Fairbury,
Nebraska, and has been blind since then from retinopathy of
prematurity (ROP). When she was five, her family moved from their
farm to Nebraska City so that she could attend the Nebraska School
for the Visually Handicapped (NSVH). Her parents made the difficult
decision to relocate to a new community far away from family,
friends, and all they knew so that Amy could continue to live at
home during her school years rather than in a dormitory. Young Amy
received a solid education and had a normal family life, complete
with two pesky little brothers, family campouts, picnics, dress-up,
and backyard sports. Amy has said her family's sacrifice was crucial
to her peace of mind in her formative years, and she has always
been grateful her parents made the choice they did.
While a student at NSVH, Amy received training in many
blindness skills, the most critical of which was Braille,
which helped her to excel academically. She participated
in countless musicals, the track team, cheerleading, and
speech competition. In her freshman year Amy began taking
classes at the public school in Nebraska City. Although
she was active in extra-curricular activities, including
service as president of her school's chapter of the Fellowship
of Christian Athletes, Amy found it hard to make friends.
She recalls that throughout her public school years she
sat through many lonely lunches. With an outgoing personality
Amy easily made acquaintances, but no one invited her to
parties or asked her to go to the movies. Amy took piano
lessons from kindergarten through her sophomore year and voice
lessons from her freshman to her senior year. She still sings at
churches, banquets, and karaoke as often as she can. She taught
summer enrichment courses on the basics of Braille to school children
in her hometown. Through the Nebraska Human Resources Department
at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Amy also participated in
a Big-Sister-style program, in which she was paired with a blind
elementary school student whom she continued to mentor well after
the program's conclusion. Growing up, Amy had few positive blind
role models and limited contact with her blind peers. During her
teenage years she first participated in youth programs sponsored
by the Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired
(NCBVI), where she gained many valuable skills and met her future
husband. For several summers Amy worked as a volunteer counselor
at the Summer Kids Independence Program (SKIP) Camp, a program for
children ages five to twelve, sponsored by NCBVI. She wanted to
share with other blind youth the things she had learned during her
high school journey: which plans had worked for her, and which
hadn't. She believed then and believes more absolutely today that
mentoring is important in improving one's attitude toward blindness
and a great way to learn how to handle being different in our
society. Whether at home or at school, participating in music,
academics, or athletics, Amy was successfully working and competing
with her sighted peers. She was even named second runner-up in the
1990 Nebraska City Miss Applejack Pageant. Yet in addition she had
to face another, deeply personal aspect of life. As a senior in
high school she began wrestling with life questions that neither
her family and teachers nor her sighted peers could answer. Could
she really be successful as an independent blind adult? Would she
ever marry and have a family? What about employment? Could she get
a job and do it well? Following graduation, Amy began conquering
her fears and seeking answers to these nagging questions by attending
the Orientation Training Center of the Nebraska Commission for the
Blind and Visually Impaired in Lincoln. There she was first introduced
to the underpinning philosophy of the National Federation of the
Blind and, equally important, to kind and inspirational Federationists.
Armed with newfound confidence and skills, Amy enrolled in Peru
State College, graduating with a BS in psychology, sociology, and
criminal justice. Throughout her time on campus she was active as
a peer mentor, in student senate, and in residence hall government.
She also soloed and toured with the concert choir. She helped found
and held several offices in the Association for Challenged and
Enabled Students (ACES), a group dedicated to breaking down
stereotypes and eliminating discrimination against those with
disabilities. ACES sought to educate the non-disabled public about
the challenges people with disabilities face. During the years at
Peru State College Amy began working with women and children who
experience domestic violence, a field to which she still devotes
time when she can. She served as a volunteer counselor for a
nonprofit in Southeast Nebraska and other agencies. She has worked
tirelessly as an advocate, role model, and leader for both women
and the blind. She attributes her success with blind people to her
discovery of and involvement in the National Federation of the
Blind. In 1993 the NFB of Nebraska established a scholarship
program, and Amy won that first scholarship. With this award she
faced a turning point in the evolution of her personal philosophy
and in her affiliation with the National Federation of the Blind.
Growing up, she had been warned that the NFB was an organization
of militants whom she should avoid. Thanks to the scholarship
program, Amy attended her first state convention in the fall of
1993, discovered the warmth of the members of the NFB and the
important work we are doing, and hasn't looked back since. In
fact, the very next year, in October of 1994, Amy and a handful of
other concerned blind Nebraska students were granted the charter
for the Nebraska Association of Blind Students within the Nebraska
affiliate. She was elected president of the student division, an
office she held for two years. Since those early days in the
Federation, Amy has held a number of chapter and affiliate positions
in Nebraska. In 2003 she was elected to serve as affiliate president,
and in the summer of 2006 she was elected by the national convention
to the board of directors of the National Federation of the Blind.
Amy and her husband Shane (a leader and dedicated Federationist in
his own right) live in Lincoln with their son Noah (born May 2,
2006). She is employed as a rehabilitation counselor with the
Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Patti Gregory-Chang]
Patti Gregory-Chang NFB of Illinois
President Attorney, Advocate, Mother
Patti Gregory-Chang was born in May of 1963. She never had vision
in her right eye and has been blind since the age of twelve, when
the sight in her left eye began failing as a result of microthalmia.
For Patti, however, her blindness is no more interesting or important
than any of her other characteristics, such as being a woman or an
attorney. Growing up in Harbor Springs, Michigan, Patti lived a
normal life, learning early that blindness was not a tragedy. "We
lived in town. My younger brother Gerry and I hung out. I did winter
sports and worked a little in the summer. My parents (Eve Lauer
and Donald Gregory) did a good job of treating me like anyone else.
They had high expectations," she said. After graduating from Harbor
Springs High School in 1981, Patti planned to attend school with
hopes of becoming a teacher of the visually impaired. After earning
her teaching certificate at Michigan State University, she discovered
a passion for law and enrolled at the University of Chicago Law
School. Patti graduated from law school in 1988 and has worked in
the City of Chicago Law Department ever since. She began her tenure
there in the Traffic Division and then worked her way up to assistant
corporation counsel. In this position she prosecuted housing court
matters in the Circuit Court of Cook County and handled collection
matters for the Building and Land Use Litigation Division of the
City of Chicago Law Department. In 1998 Patti became senior
assistant corporation counsel for the City of Chicago Law Department.
In this role she prosecutes cases, supervises attorneys prosecuting
cases, coordinates law clerks and externs, and serves on various
committees and task forces. She belongs to several professional
associations and is active in the Municipal Administrative Law
arena in Illinois. Patti first joined the National Federation of
the Blind in 1981 in Michigan. She moved to Illinois in 1985 and
has been increasingly active ever since. She served as Chicago
chapter president and as first vice president of the Illinois
affiliate before becoming president in 2006. She was elected to
the National Federation of the Blind board of directors in 2008,
and was appointed by President Maurer to chair the National Federation
of the Blind Scholarship Committee in 2011. "The NFB is huge. When
I found the NFB, I realized that its philosophy was the same as
the one I had fortunately grown up with: 'blind people are able to
live full and productive lives just like any sighted person. We
want the same chances to succeed as everyone else. With the right
techniques, blindness can be reduced to an inconvenience, rather
than being a tragedy.' " The NFB's monthly publication, the Braille
Monitor, has featured several articles by Patti on a variety of
blindness topics: Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and the
Illinois affiliate of which she is president. She is also a frequent
contributor to the ISBA Administrative Law Section newsletter.
Patti and her husband Francisco Chang have raised two children.
Francisco is an RN with several national certifications. They were
married in 1984. "I love to brag about my kids, John, a graduate
of the University of Illinois at Urbana, and Julia, who attends
the University of Illinois at Urbana now. They both excel and care
about people. They are really special," she said. Patti and
Francisco work to strike a balance among the priorities in their
lives: work, family, philanthropy, and play. Francisco has
tricitizenship because he is of Chinese descent and was raised in
Belize. As a result of her husband's experiences, Patti administered
practice exams and review sessions for permanent residents trying
to obtain US citizenship at the Pui Tak Center in Chicago from 2002
to 2006. "When we find time in our busy schedules, one of our
favorite things to do is travel," Patti said. "We have traveled
extensively in Central America, and Mexico." Wherever the Changs
go, they illustrate the NFB's core belief that blind people are
normal people who cannot see, and their lives and contributions
can be as rich and valuable as those of anyone else.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Parnell Diggs]
Parnell Diggs
NFB of South Carolina President Attorney,
Musician, Family Man
Parnell Diggs was among the initial generation of
Braille-reading students to enter first grade in the public
schools of Charlotte, North Carolina. It was 1975, and the
president of the United States had just signed into law
what is known today as the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA), guaranteeing disabled students the
right to a public education. Diggs had been born blind
because of detached retinas. School officials were reluctant
to admit him into a classroom with sighted students; but
they had no choice if the school system was to qualify for
federal funding, and Bill and Nancy Diggs refused to accept
the limitations for their son that society ordinarily placed
on blind children. Young Diggs unequivocally demonstrated
that he could acquire an education alongside his sighted
peers. But he always looked forward to the end of the school
day. In the yards, woods, and streets of his childhood, he
climbed trees, rode bikes, and played quarterback on the
neighborhood Pop Warner football team after his family
relocated to Columbia, South Carolina. He taught his
younger brother Holland how to play baseball and how to
wrestle. Holland was sighted, and he taught "Parnelli," (a
family nickname), the things most children learn by watching
others, such as how to dance, shrug his shoulders, and give
the thumbs-up sign. They remained close until Holland's
untimely death in 2005. In high school Diggs participated
on the varsity wrestling team and made the South Carolina
Honors All-State Chorus, and, while his friends were earning
spending cash bagging groceries, he was earning good money
singing and playing the guitar in Columbia area restaurants.
In 1989 Diggs met Kenneth Jernigan and Donald Capps, two
leaders who had dedicated their lives to helping their
blind brothers and sisters. They shared a message of promise
and achievement for the blind and talked about how the
blind could accomplish more through collective action.
Diggs quickly embraced their reasoning and passion. Before
long Diggs recognized that the full integration of blind
people into society would be his life's work; and though
he was busy double majoring in political science and
religious studies, working, and maintaining a social
calendar, he believed that the best way to help himself as
a blind person was to become a member of the National
Federation of the Blind. In 1991 Diggs participated in an
NFB leadership seminar, where he received intensive
instruction from NFB President Marc Maurer, whose leadership
style has strongly influenced Diggs to this day. That year,
he attended his first NFB national convention. Before
arriving in New Orleans that summer, he had read Dr. Floyd
Matson's eleven-hundred-page history of the first fifty
years of the National Federation of the Blind, Walking
Alone and Marching Together, in its entirety, as well as
other NFB literature. By the summer of 1992 Diggs had
completed his first year of law school and was working as
a law clerk at the South Carolina Office of Appellate
Defense, the state agency responsible for handling criminal
appeals for indigent defendants. There he acquired the
skills of legal research and oral argument and learned to
interact with clients in the facilities of the South Carolina
Department of Corrections. Diggs accepted a position as
a law clerk in a private firm in 1993 and continued to hold
this position after he was hired as a page in the South
Carolina Senate. At one point in 1994, Diggs, a newlywed,
was juggling his final semester of law school with two
part-time jobs. He had married Kimberly Dawn Gossett (his
high school sweetheart) on May 22, 1993. The couple relocated
to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in 1995 when he accepted
a full-time position with the South Carolina Commission
for the Blind administering rehabilitation programs in a
four-county area. In 1997 he opened a private law practice
in Myrtle Beach, where he remains in practice today. Diggs
was first elected to the National Federation of the Blind
of South Carolina board of directors in 1992, and he has
been reelected every two years since. He was appointed by
Governor Jim Hodges to the governing board of the South
Carolina Commission for the Blind in 1999 and again in 2002
and was twice confirmed by the state Senate. This appointment
made him the only person ever to have been a client, an
employee, and a member of the governing board of the South
Carolina Commission for the Blind. In 2000 Donald Capps
announced that he would not seek reelection as president
of the National Federation of the Blind of South Carolina
and recommended that Diggs be elected in his stead. Diggs
was elected unanimously and has held the presidency ever
since. In 2007 the nation's blind elected him unanimously
to the board of directors of the National Federation of
the Blind. As a private practitioner Diggs has argued
before the United States Court of Appeals in the 4th and
8th Circuits and has represented some three hundred clients
in federal administrative proceedings. Music continues to
be an important part of his life. Diggs sang first tenor
and soloed with the Carolina Master Chorale in Europe in
June of 2012 and performs regularly as a singer and guitarist
as a member of Surfside United Methodist Church. The
Diggses have one son, Jordan, born on January 12, 2000. As
he pondered his son's future, Diggs made the following
observation, "Jordan will be told that he is less fortunate
than other children are because his dad is blind, but thanks
to the National Federation of the Blind, he won't believe
it. Blindness is not a tragedy. I am determined that this
is the message about blindness that my son will hear most."
[PHOTO CAPTION: Michael Freeman]
Michael Freeman NFB of Washington
President
Computer Systems Programmer, Activist, Musician
Michael Freeman was born more than two months prematurely
on October 30, 1948, in Vancouver, Washington. He spent
his early childhood just across the Columbia River in
Portland, Oregon, beginning his education in the Portland
public schools. Later he attended the Washington State
School for the Blind (WSSB) in Vancouver and ultimately
graduated from the city's Columbia River High School, where
he was a member of the National Honor Society, played
trumpet in the band, and sang in the choir. In the fall
of 1966 Mike matriculated at Reed College in Portland,
Oregon, receiving commendation by vote of the faculty for
outstanding academic achievement at the end of his freshman
year. He graduated from Reed with a BA in physics. He
briefly ventured away from the Pacific Northwest to earn
his MS in physics from New Mexico State University in Las
Cruces. For over thirty years Michael was a computer
systems programmer at the Bonneville Power Administration,
an agency of the US Department of Energy; he retired at
the end of July, 2013. He provided mainstream information
technology support to a large and technically diverse staff.
While he believes that his blindness definitely kept him
from finding employment as a physicist, he good-naturedly
admits that in the middle 1970s physicists were a dime a
dozen and that many of his colleagues also found careers
in complex computer systems programming. He says, "I've
had fun here. I've found my work at the BPA to be a rewarding
and intellectually stimulating experience." Michael's
talents are reflected as much by his personal interests
and accomplishments as they are in his professional
achievements. He speaks fluent German, and he is able to
converse competently in French and Spanish. He plays several
musical instruments, most notably piano. Michael recalls
the honor of playing George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
with the Oregon Symphony Orchestra in 1971 at twenty-three.
An amateur radio operator since 1962, he now holds an
Amateur Extra Class License. He is a voracious reader,
particularly interested in military and political history,
foreign affairs, economics, fire science, the natural
sciences, music, and medicine. "I became aware of the
National Federation of the Blind shortly after graduating
from high school when I began applying for college
scholarships. I received an NFB Howard Brown Rickard
Scholarship in the late 1960s. Bennett Prows, a longtime
Federationist, introduced me to the writings of Dr. Jacobus
tenBroek, the NFB's founder. Dr. tenBroek's erudite style
and message that blindness need not be a tragedy and could
be reduced to a physical nuisance -- a message of common
sense and hope -- expressed my thinking exactly. Being a
skeptic, it took me several years to join the NFB, but it
was the best decision I have ever made." Michael returned
to Vancouver in 1978 and helped establish the Clark County
Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Washington
in early 1983. He began serving as first vice president of
the Washington affiliate in 1984, becoming its president
for a term in 1996. He has served as affiliate president
continuously since 2003. In 2005 he became diabetic. In
2008 he was elected president of the Diabetes Action Network,
the NFB division for diabetics. Michael's work as an
activist in the Federation is most evident in his success
as the Washington State affiliate's legislative chair for
the last thirty years. He has led campaigns to pass strong
Braille literacy legislation (1996); first-in-the-nation
consumer guide dog protections (1988); and progressive
reforms strengthening the Washington State School for the
Blind, making it a stand-alone agency of state government
(1985). In the same year that the affiliate realized the
WSSB victory, Michael also orchestrated early landmark
nondiscrimination legislation making it unlawful to deem
a parent or guardian of a minor neglectful or abusive solely
by virtue of his or her blindness. He is the proud father
of Shanthi Anne Freeman, his adopted multiply-disabled
daughter from India; she was born in November 1989. "The
NFB has offered me the chance to do my part to educate
society that it is respectable to be blind, to make life
better for the blind, and to promote the integration of
the blind into society. I am grateful for the opportunity
that the NFB has given me to pay the debt I owe to those
who have made possible the civil rights and the chance to
succeed that I enjoy. In working for the goals of the NFB,
I have helped myself too, for I have proved to myself that
it is respectable to be blind."
[PHOTO CAPTION: John Fritz]
John Fritz NFB of Wisconsin
President Business Owner, Advocate, and
Father
John Fritz was born in September of 1966. He was raised on
a family dairy farm in southwest Wisconsin. He is the oldest
of five children. He was lucky enough to have parents who
made him learn the value of hard work early on. "We were
a farm family, and I was the oldest son. I was expected to
help with the chores and work outside with my dad." He was
born legally blind but had some sight. This diminished to
light perception by the age of three. He believed at an
early age that sight was not a requirement to be successful.
John attended the Wisconsin School for the Blind from
kindergarten through the seventh grade, primarily because
the public school didn't believe a blind child could be
served in his hometown. In seventh grade he was able to
persuade the school counselor to allow him to transfer back
to his local public school. He remembers this being a very
difficult adjustment. Having lived at the school for the
blind for seven years and being away from his siblings, he
found it hard to return and take his place again. Everyone
had to get to know each other again. "I realized how much
I was missing out on at home," he said. John graduated
from Fennimore High School with honors in 1985. Before and
after school he was responsible for milking cows and helping
with general farm work during high school. He earned his
letter in wrestling and played trumpet in pep band, marching
band, and concert band. His most significant accomplishments
came in Future Farmers of America (FFA). He was involved
in an extemporaneous-speaking competition, the Creed Speaking
Contest; dairy judging; and parliamentary procedure. He
placed fourth in the nation in computers in agriculture
and achieved the American Farmer Degree. He also served as
president of his FFA chapter for two years. John attended
the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, where he graduated
with honors in 1989 with a major in animal science,
emphasizing dairy management, nutrition, and reproduction.
He also earned a minor in computer science. While in college
he participated in the academic decathlon in agriculture
and in seven academic clubs and organizations. In these
years John got his first dose of the low expectations many
professionals have for blind students. When he told his
Department for Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) counselor
that he wanted to be a veterinarian, his counselor informed
him that, if he pursued that career, DVR wouldn't fund him.
The counselor announced that a blind person wouldn't be
able to be a veterinarian. So John told the DVR counselor
to leave. That day he learned quickly that, if he wanted
to pursue his goals, he needed to find a way to pay for
college himself. He found part-time jobs, work-study
assignments, and scholarships to pay his way. "The most
significant event of my life occurred the summer of my
sophomore year at a national convention when I won a National
Federation of the Blind scholarship in Phoenix, Arizona,"
John said. This was his first exposure to the NFB. He was
relieved to find peers doing similar things and blind people
with the same philosophy. He realized during that convention
that he had finally found the biggest and most reliable
source of information any blind college student could ever
have -- other blind people. While attending college, he
continued to work on the farm on weekends. College provided
him the opportunity to advocate for himself and become a
self-sufficient person. John started working on the family
dairy farm right after graduating from college. By this
time he had decided that the dairy farm was the immediate
need, and veterinary school would have to wait. He was
responsible for the day-to-day operations and management
of the farm, where he milked sixty-five registered Brown
Swiss cows. In 1991 he started working part-time for a
local computer store as a computer technician. His main
responsibility was repairing computers. The next year he
became store manager, where his responsibilities included
the day-to-day operation of the store, sales, and service.
He left the farm and moved to town. He continued at this
job for six years. In 1995 he married Heather Ross. They
met during the 1992 NFB convention in Charlotte and started
dating after running into each other again during the Dallas
convention in 1993. In 1997 he accepted a job with the
Louisiana Center for the Blind as the computer instructor.
He describes it as a very rewarding experience because it
provided the opportunity for him to fully absorb and live
the philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind each
day. While in Louisiana, John and Heather Fritz started
their family. Lindsey was born in 1998, Christina was born
in 1999, Mark was sponsored from Korea in 2001, and Andrew
was born in 2002. In 2003 John made the difficult decision
to leave his job and friends at the center and return home
to Wisconsin with Heather's parents, who had just retired
to Wisconsin from California, to begin his own vending
business with the Business Enterprise program. This is what
he continues to do today. In 2005 the Fritzes adopted their
daughter Katie from China at the age of six. In 2006 John
and Heather built their dream home for their growing family
on fifteen acres in Kendall, Wisconsin. He also built a
warehouse for his business, J&H Vending, Inc. John says
that he was honored to be elected president of the NFB of
Wisconsin in 2006. He has enjoyed working with the affiliate,
divisions, and the blind of Wisconsin. In 2008 he was
elected to the National Federation of the Blind board of
directors. He remains very busy with the state affiliate,
along with being a member of Lions Club, the local Ham
Radio Club, and various other clubs and organizations. He
also likes to do woodworking, grilling, fishing, and hunting
large game with his kids. As busy as he is, and as many
activities as he pursues, nothing is more important to John than
spending time watching his children grow -- all seven of them!
Child number six, a four-year-old boy from India they named Jacob,
was adopted in May of 2009. The Fritz family has also been joined
by a seventeen-year-old daughter named Anna, who was originally
adopted from China by another family when she was nine years old,
but became part of the Fritz clan in the summer of 2009.
Reflecting on his life and work, John says, "The National
Federation of the Blind doesn't prescribe what a blind
person should do or even what he or she can do. It merely
invites every blind person to dream and work to achieve
those dreams. Its members blaze trails for one another and
cheer each other along the way."
[PHOTO CAPTION: Sam Gleese]
Sam Gleese
NFB of Mississippi President Businessman
and Ordained Minister
In 1947 Vicksburg, Mississippi, was not an ideal place for
a black child to be born with congenital cataracts. For
years no one even noticed that little Sam Gleese had
difficulty seeing, least of all Sam himself. He simply
assumed that everyone else saw things with the hazy
imprecision that he did. One day when he was in the second
grade, the teacher in the segregated school he attended
sent a note home asking his mother to come to school for
a conference. To the Gleese family's astonishment she told
them that Sam had significant difficulty seeing to read
and do board work. By the fourth grade the bouts of surgery
had begun. Glasses (which Sam hated and forgot to wear most
of the time) were prescribed. But none of this effort
enabled young Sam to make out much of what his friends
could see. Then in 1962, when he was fifteen, Gleese
underwent surgery that gave him enough vision to show him
by comparison just how little he had seen until that time.
He graduated from high school in 1966 and enrolled that
fall at Jackson State College, where he majored in business
administration. Looking back, Gleese is sure that he was
legally blind throughout these years, but he never considered
that he might have anything in common with the blind students
he saw on campus. His struggle was always to see, and that
made him sighted. Occasionally he was forced to deal with
his difficulty in reading, particularly when a fellow
student or teacher pointed out what he seemed to be missing,
but for the most part he denied his situation and resented
those who tried to make him face his problem. After
graduation in 1970, Gleese joined a management training
program conducted by K-Mart. Everyone agreed that he was
excellent on the floor and dealing with employees, but,
though he did not realize it, he was extremely unreliable
in doing paperwork. He consistently put information on the
wrong line. His supervisor confronted him with the problem
and told him he had vision trouble. He hotly denied it,
but within the year he was out of the program. During the
following years Gleese applied repeatedly for jobs that
would use his business training. When he supplied information
about his medical history and his vision, would-be employers
lost interest. Finally in late 1972 he got a job as assistant
night stock clerk with a grocery chain. He had a wife to
support--he and Vanessa Smith had married in August of
1970--and he needed whatever job he could find. Gradually
he worked his way up to assistant frozen food manager in
the chain, though it wasn't easy. Then in 1979 his retinas
detached, and within a few weeks late in the year he had
become almost totally blind. For a month or two he was
profoundly depressed. His wife, however, refused to give
up on him or his situation. Gradually Gleese began to
realize that she was right. He could still provide for his
family and find meaningful work to do. He just had to master
the alternative methods used by blind people. Early in
1980 he enrolled in an adult training center in Jackson,
where he learned Braille, cane travel, and daily living
skills. He is still remembered in the program for the speed
with which he completed his training. By the following
summer he was working as a volunteer counselor at the
center, and in the fall, with the help of the state vocational
rehabilitation agency, he and his wife Vanessa were working
in their own tax preparation business. It was difficult,
however, to maintain a sufficient income year round, and
the Gleeses had a daughter, Nicole, born in 1976, to think
about. In 1983 he decided to try taking a job making mops
in the area sheltered workshop for the blind. He worked
there for two years until a staff member pointed out that
he could do better for himself in the state's Randolph-Sheppard
vending program, which had finally been opened to African
Americans in 1980-81. In January of 1985 Gleese was assigned
the worst vending stand in the state of Mississippi. Because
of his degree in business administration, his phenomenal
record in personal rehabilitation, and his work history in
the grocery business, officials decided that he needed no
training but could learn the program in his own location.
He spent two years in that facility, mastering the business
and improving his techniques. Then during the next several
years he had somewhat better locations. But in 1992 he bid
on an excellent facility and then appealed the decision
that awarded it to another vendor. Though the appeal
decision, which eventually came down, did not give him
personal redress, it did correct unfair practices that had
plagued many vendors in Mississippi for years. In April of
1994 Sam, with the help of his wife Vanessa, became the
manager of one of the largest food service operations in
the state vending program. Gleese has always been active
in the Missionary Baptist Church. From 1973 to 1990 he
taught the adult Sunday school class in his own church,
and in 1980 he became a deacon. He was ordained to the
ministry in November of 1992 and is now senior associate
minister at the College Hill Baptist Church. He headed the
scouting and the taping ministry. Currently he heads the
members' ministry and works with several other ministries.
Gleese first heard about the National Federation of the
Blind in the early 1980s and attended his first national
convention in 1983. He reports that from that moment he
has been a committed Federationist. Vanessa has worked
steadily beside him through the years as he has struggled
to improve the lives of Mississippi's blind citizens. He
became president of one of the state's local chapters in
1985, and the following year he was elected state president.
He has continued to serve in that office ever since. Under
his leadership the number of chapters in the Mississippi
affiliate has nearly tripled. In 1992 Gleese was first
elected to the board of directors of the National Federation
of the Blind, where he continues to serve with distinction.
He has dedicated his life to educating the public, blind
and sighted alike, about the abilities of blind people.
According to him, too many people in Mississippi believe--as
he did for many years--that blind people can do nothing
and belong in rocking chairs and back rooms. Sam Gleese is
making a difference everywhere he puts his hand. In May
of 1999 the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, chose Sam to
serve as chairperson of the newly formed Mayor's Advisory
Committee on Disabilities. In September of that year he
was appointed and confirmed by the city council of Jackson
as the first blind person to serve on the Jackson-Hinds
Library administrative board. This board oversees the
services of public libraries in each of the seven towns in
the Hinds County area. In August of 2000 Gleese retired
from the vending program for health reasons. He served one
year in the AmeriCorps volunteer program. The project with
which he was associated encourages and enables people with
disabilities to become fully involved in the community.
The program is the only one of its kind in Mississippi and
is staffed by disabled people. Sam explains that other
AmeriCorps programs are designed to assist in education--tutoring
and the like--but this program allowed him to increase his
outreach to blind people and the general disability community.
It provided yet one more way of living his Federationism
and ministering to the people he has been called to serve.
In August of 2001 Gleese accepted a position as an independent
living specialist with LIFE (Living Independence for
Everyone) of central Mississippi. This position provided
opportunities to work with adolescents with special health
care needs between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one in
Mississippi. The project, called Healthy Futures, was funded
by a four-year grant through the Maternal and Child Health
Bureau of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
In January of 2002 Gleese became the statewide project
director for the Healthy Futures grant. This position
enhanced his opportunity to serve all adolescents with
special health care needs, including blind people. On
October 1, 2007, Sam was employed by the City of Jackson
as its ADA compliance coordinator. In considering the
position with the city, Sam saw an opportunity to have an
even greater opportunity to positively influence the lives
of the blind and other people with disabilities in Jackson.
"I believe that the energy and commitment I bring to this
job will set a benchmark for other cities to strive for
and meet." Sam Gleese makes it clear by word and action
that each advancement he has made through the years has
been in large measure the result of the hope and determination
the NFB has instilled in its members, and he makes it clear
that he will do what he can to see that others enjoy a
quality of life as good as or better than the one he has
been privileged to live.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Ever Lee Hairston]
Ever Lee Hairston
Mentor, Advocate, Motivational Speaker
Ever Lee Hairston was unanimously elected to the Board of Directors
at the 2010 National Federation of the Blind (NFB) convention on
July 6, 2010, in Dallas, Texas. She brings considerable experience
to this position, having served in various capacities with the NFB
over the years -- including nineteen consecutive years of service
on the NFB Scholarship Committee and a fourteen-year stint as first
vice president of the NFB of New Jersey. Ever Lee founded and served
as the president of the Garden State Chapter of the NFB of New
Jersey from 1991 until 2005, and for many years she was the
coordinator of the LEAD Program, a mentoring program for blind and
visually impaired teenagers. She currently serves on the board of
directors of the Louisiana Center for the Blind and as first vice
president of the NFB of California. Born to Arizona and Clarence
Hairston on the Coolemee plantation in Mocksville, North Carolina,
Ever Lee is the third of seven children. She grew up and attended
schools in the segregated South. "I felt like a second-class citizen,
using hand-me-down books in school; and, due to unexplained vision
problems, I had to struggle to read from the bulletin board," Ever
Lee noted. In spite of the challenges of growing up in the segregated
South and continuing visual problems, Ever Lee had a strong desire
to become a nurse. Ever Lee's parents simply could not afford to
send her to college; so after high school, Ever Lee went to New
York City to earn money for college by working as a live-in maid.
She returned to North Carolina at the end of the summer anxious to
pursue a nursing career. However, she failed the required eye
examination and was told that she would not be suitable for admission
to Duke University Nursing School. "I was heartbroken but refused
to be defeated," she said. She was accepted at North Carolina
Central University, where she earned a teaching degree. After
graduating from North Carolina Central, Ever Lee taught high school
business courses in New Jersey. While working as a high school
teacher in New Jersey, Ever Lee's eyesight continued to deteriorate.
She finally sought answers and medical care. Ever Lee, along with
three siblings, were diagnosed with a genetic eye disease, retinitis
pigmentosa (RP). And, four years after starting a challenging
teaching career, Ever Lee was forced to resign from her position
because of her impending blindness. At the age of twenty-nine,
facing total blindness, with a failed marriage, a child to raise
alone, and uncertainty about future employment, Ever Lee admitted
to being devastated and feeling sorry for herself. However, she
held on to the hope that a better way of life was in store for her.
Ever Lee admits to believing in the old adage that "When God closes
a door, He opens a window." She began looking for the window.
After inventorying her strengths, she stepped through a window of
opportunity at New Jersey's Rutgers University, where she took
graduate courses in counseling. In 1983 she landed a Counselor
Trainee position with the Camden County Department of Health and
Human Services. But, as Ever Lee explains it, "With no blindness
skills, I was faking my way through." She notes that she relied
heavily on sighted people to read to her and to act as guides.
In 1987 Ever Lee received a call from Jackie Billie inviting
her to a NFB convention in Phoenix, Arizona. At first she
made excuses because she was afraid of requesting the time
off from her job. Jackie was persistent, and Ever Lee
finally agreed to attend the convention. Ever Lee describes
arriving at the hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, to the unfamiliar
sound of canes tapping and the unsettling feeling of dogs
licking her legs. The most profound experience, as Ever
Lee explains it, came when she started through the registration
line. She remembers being asked, "Would you like a Braille
or print agenda?" She could no longer read print and did
not know Braille. It was then, according to Ever Lee, that
a light bulb went off. "I am illiterate," she thought.
She talked to as many people as she could at that convention
in Phoenix, Arizona, and learned about the NFB centers.
From then until 1990 she continued to function without
blindness skills but worked on a plan with Joanne Wilson
to get to Louisiana where she could be trained. Ever Lee
attended the Louisiana Center for the Blind from October
1990 until April 1991. She learned to read Braille, mastered
cane travel and independent living skills, and learned to
utilize adaptive technology. She returned to New Jersey,
after the Freedom Bell rang for her at the Louisiana Center,
with a confidence she never had before, integrating blindness
skills into her everyday life. Ever Lee credits her training
at the Louisiana Center for the Blind with enabling her to
succeed at her chosen career. After twenty-six years holding
many successive positions with the Department of Health
and Human Services, Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse
Program in New Jersey, Ever Lee retired from the position
of program director in 2006. In July of 2006 she moved to
California. She continues to devote tireless hours mentoring
and advocating for the blind, as well as delivering inspiring
speeches to blind and visually impaired audiences and
educating the sighted public about blindness. Ever Lee is
blessed with one son, Victor; a wonderful daughter-in-law,
Brenda; and three energetic grandchildren: Briana, Kendall,
and Jasmine. She enjoys traveling, reading a good novel,
and spending time with family and friends.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Cathy Jackson]
Cathy Jackson NFB of Kentucky
President Advocate, Braille Specialist,
and Mother
Mary Catherine Brothers (Cathy) was born on October 25,
1949, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Charles and Catherine
Brothers. She is the third of nine children, four girls
and five boys. Cathy was born with congenital cataracts.
In 1949 few resources were available to parents of blind
children. The National Federation of the Blind was only
nine years old, and the Kentucky affiliate was only two
years old. The Brothers family had not heard of either.
Her parents had never known any other blind people and
couldn't imagine what the future might hold for their
daughter. However, they decided that a common-sense approach
was their best avenue. Luckily for Cathy, they never
considered any approach to raising their blind daughter
other than the methods they were using to raise their two
older boys. After several eye surgeries Cathy gained some
usable vision in her right eye. At age five she was enrolled
in a Roman Catholic school. Her parents chose this educational
setting since the school offered a sight-saving class,
where she would have access to large-print books and other
materials that would make classroom work easier. Then in
the fall of 1960 Cathy was enrolled at the Kentucky School
for the Blind, where she remained until graduating from
high school in 1967. Her parents and teachers decided that
it would be more beneficial for her to attend school where
she would have access to all of her textbooks in large
print and, perhaps more important, where she could learn
Braille. This was Cathy's first exposure to totally blind
peers and adults. Although she had been around other visually
impaired students at her elementary school, the majority
of them could see considerably better than she. She and
her parents soon learned that blindness was simply a physical
condition, certainly not one that would keep her from
achieving whatever goals she set for herself. During these
seven years while attending the Kentucky School for the
Blind, she began to learn not to be ashamed of her blindness.
She learned to advocate for herself and others. Being
student council president during her junior and senior
years launched her political career. During the summer of
1967 Cathy attended the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind.
An ill-advised rehabilitation counselor thought this training
would be the crowning touch to prepare her for college in
the fall. That summer school Lighthouse class of 1967 was
comprised of very bright, outgoing, normal young adults,
who turned the tables on the Lighthouse staff and teachers.
As Cathy remembers the experience, the adults were the ones
to get the education when the students refused to be bound
by the low expectations and negative attitudes of the staff.
At this point in her life she still had not heard about
the National Federation of the Blind but was already
preaching and practicing NFB philosophy. Upon graduation
from high school Cathy attended Spalding University, formerly
Catherine Spalding College in Louisville, Kentucky. She
majored in psychology, minored in sociology, and took an
active part in academic, student government, and social
organizations. The blindness skills and attitudes she had
learned at the Kentucky School for the Blind and even the
negative attitudes she had been exposed to at the Lighthouse
the summer before college were beginning to pay dividends.
Cathy was growing into an adult with increasingly resolute
convictions and positive attitudes. In 1972 Cathy met
Betty Niceley, the longtime leader of the Kentucky affiliate
and for many years a member of the NFB board of directors.
The rest is history. This friendship began her formal
Federation education. Although Cathy was slow to join the
Federation, Betty never gave up on recruiting her. In 1975
Cathy became a member of the Louisville Association of the
Blind, the former name of the local NFB chapter. Through
the years Cathy eventually served as secretary, vice
president, and president of the National Federation of the
Blind of Greater Louisville. She was also treasurer of the
National Association to Promote the Use of Braille of
Kentucky. In the Kentucky affiliate she has served as board
member, treasurer, first vice president, and now president.
At the 2002 annual convention of the National Federation
of the Blind held in Louisville, she was elected to the
board of directors of the National Federation of the Blind.
Cathy has held a variety of jobs through the years. During
college she was employed at the Kentucky Industries for
the Blind (now LC Industries for the Blind) to do seasonal
contract work. For a short time after college Cathy worked
for the state of Kentucky as a social worker in the Food
Stamp Office. After staying home to raise her daughter,
Cathy has worked successively as the program coordinator
for the National Federation of the Blind of Kentucky Braille
Service Center, a clerical support staff member in a law
office, and the Braille clerk for the Jefferson County
school system. But her favorite job of all was stay-at-home
mom to her daughter Dana Nicole. She volunteered as a
classroom aide, did substitute teaching, and worked as a
secretary in the principal's office. She served as president
of the school Parent Teacher Association, secretary of the
athletic club, and member of the parish council. In addition
she coached both the peewee basketball team and the
cheerleading squad. In June of 2010 Cathy joined the ranks
of the retired. She is enjoying retirement to the fullest.
She says it affords her more time to concentrate on her
NFB obligations. She is also enjoying spending precious
time with her family, especially her two granddaughters,
Hana and Haley. Cathy has received a number of awards for
academic and athletic achievement, but the awards she
cherishes most are the Susan B. Rarick, Harold L. Reagan
and T. V. Cranmer awards presented to her by the National
Federation of the Blind of Kentucky. Cathy commented that
her roots and commitment to the NFB go deep and that the
past thirty-eight years are just the beginning.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Carl Jacobsen]
Carl Jacobsen NFB of New York
President Businessman, Community Activist,
Teacher
Carl Jacobsen was born on December 22, 1946, and raised in Brooklyn,
New York, where his father had immigrated from Norway and his mother
from Scotland. When he was sixteen, he lost his sight over a
four-month period due to Lieber's Syndrome. Although it would be
some time before he found the NFB, Carl says he employed Federation
philosophy in his approach to his blindness from the day he learned
his diagnosis. He transferred from Brooklyn Tech to Erasmus Hall
High School because that's where the resource room was located. At
Erasmus he met two adults who would have a positive influence on
his life: his resource teacher, Sam Ellis, and his orientation and
mobility instructor, Ed Towns. Carl tells the story of how Towns,
now a former member of Congress, gave him a dry cleaning claim
ticket and some cash and told him to pick up his suit. When Carl
asked where the dry cleaner was located, Towns responded that,
since he was such a wise guy, he could figure it out for himself.
While at Erasmus, Carl also met Sally Rupp, one of the volunteer
readers in the resource room, whom he would later marry. After
graduation from high school Carl attended Concordia College in
Moorhead, Minnesota, for two years while Sally attended nursing
school in Brooklyn. They decided the separation was too stressful,
however, so Carl left school to marry Sally. Soon he and Sally
began their family with son Bradley and daughter Christine, born
in their first five years of marriage. Later, in 1991, they adopted
their son Andrew from Korea. While the older children were growing
up, Carl returned to school and finished his bachelor's degree at
Hunter College in New York City. He also attended Union Seminary
for three years but decided not to seek ordination. Carl attended
his first NFB national convention in 1989 and has missed only one
since, the year his wife Sally was critically ill. In the fall of
1989 he was elected second vice president of the New York affiliate.
In 1991 he was elected president of the New York City Chapter, an
office he held until 2005. Later that year he was elected first
vice president of the state affiliate and subsequently elected
affiliate president in 1997, a position he continues to hold. Carl
also served on the board of directors of the National Association
of Blind Merchants until July of 2006. Throughout his life Carl
has pursued various careers, including factory management and
business enterprise management. He says his favorite work is
teaching. Though he has never taught school, in addition to training
entrants into the Randolph-Sheppard Program, he worked with blind
children and teens on cane travel and other blindness skills as
well as on attitudes about blindness. He also gives presentations
to parents and educators of blind children on the truth about
blindness the Federation way. Throughout the 1970s and 80s Carl
was instrumental in establishing several programs for preschool
children through local churches. Carl was elected to the NFB board
of directors in 2004. His daughter Christine presented him with
twin grandchildren, Jason and Caitlin. His wife Sally died in
February 2002. His son Brad and daughter-in-law Maggy presented
him with another grandson, Gunnar Albizu, who was born in February
of 2013. On May 20, 2006, Carl married Cantor Dr. Mindy Fliegelman.
Together they continue to work for the independence of blind people
in New York and across the country. While he has received many
awards and rewards, Carl says the greatest of them all is the
victories both large and small which he and others achieve through
the Federation. As long as the Lord gives them strength and breath,
Carl and Mindy will work to advance the cause of the NFB.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Jeannie Massay]
Jeannie Massay NFB of Oklahoma
President Counselor, Advocate, and Leader
Jeannie Massay was born in 1968 in Oklahoma City, the youngest of
three children and the only girl. She said she was blessed to be
a daddy's girl, with brothers who did whatever she told them to
do. "They always had my back and were loving and supportive," she
said.
Jeannie had good vision for the first thirty-seven years
of her life, though she did suffer from severe astigmatism
and wore strong glasses to compensate for it. She attended
Windsor Hills Elementary School because her mother was a
teacher there. "I have been an avid reader all of my life,
and because my mom was a reading specialist who worked with
sixth-graders, after school I went to her classroom to
learn about Pompeii, the pyramids, and all kinds of things
younger children didn't normally get to read about." In
junior high she attended Leo C. Mayfield. As a student she was
involved in competing in intermural basketball and softball. She
was also involved in the Pep Club and Student Council. In ninth
grade Jeannie had unexplained weight loss and severe abdominal
cramping, but soon the symptoms went away. They would return every
couple months, and initially she was diagnosed with hyperglycemia.
When she was sixteen the cramping, weight loss, and lethargy caused
the doctor to do a blood glucose tolerance test, revealing a blood
sugar level as high as 900. A normal blood sugar is considered to
be around one hundred, and one is considered to be a diabetic if
blood sugar levels exceed 140. She was hospitalized for a week to
learn to manage her diabetes. Jeannie attended Putnam City West
High School, where she played competitive softball and performed
in the band for three years. She was on the debate team and managed
to get A's and B's, which kept her on the honor roll. "Although I
didn't do badly, I wish I had done better. I was pretty social and
liked to talk to people. I was a pretty well-rounded kid, but it
was tough being a diabetic and wanting to eat like a teenager.
Since I wanted to fit in and do what I thought was normal, at times
I went to the pizza parlor and the hamburger joints." After high
school Jeannie attended the University of Central Oklahoma, living
at home until her senior year. She thought she wanted to be a
political scientist until her first class and then decided this
was not what she was meant to do. Instead, she began studying
psychology, and in 1990, during a two-week period, she graduated,
got married, and watched her husband leave for active military
service. Jeannie got a job selling cosmetics in a department store.
When her husband Mark was transferred from Fort Knox to San Antonio
to go through medical training to be a dietitian, she moved to be
near him. After his training was completed, Mark was stationed at
Landstuhl General Hospital in Germany, the largest military hospital
in the European Theatre. When Jeannie was eventually able to go
to Germany, she loved it: the people, the food, and the opportunity
for travel. She taught at a department of defense dependent school,
providing instruction in reading, math, and language arts. She also
worked with a behavioral management specialist, which led her to
think at the time that she did not want to work with children --
all the funnier because she eventually came to realize this was
her calling and now her job is counseling children and teenagers.
Jeannie and her husband were in Germany just over three
years during the Bosnian conflict. When the military began
downsizing, Mark was offered early contract closure and
both returned to the States. Jeannie went back to selling
cosmetics, working at Estée Lauder. She started by working
behind the counter, then became counter manager, and then
assumed the job of account coordinator, managing seven
counters around Oklahoma. When Mark received a promotion,
both moved to Alexandria, Virginia, where he managed Marriott
contracts for Georgetown University. Jeannie was able to
continue her work with Estée Lauder but now she was back
to working on the counter. Soon that counter was bringing
in $1 million a year. Yet another promotion for Mark found
the couple moving to Jackson, Mississippi. Estée Lauder
helped Jeannie find another job, this time managing multiple
counters. The couple was in Jackson for two years, but a
merger sent Mark to St. Louis, where he ran the food and
conference center for Boeing. Jeannie went to work for a
subsidiary of Estée Lauder, Origins, where she worked as
the coordinator for eight stores in Missouri and Indiana.
While in St. Louis the couple lived in an old Jewish Temple
which had been renovated into an apartment. This she loved.
Soon she was given the opportunity to interview as an
account executive for Origins, flew to New York for the
interview, talked with Mark, and was gratified to learn
that his reaction to making a move that would further her
career was unequivocal: "You have followed me around for
ten years, so now I will gladly follow you." The couple
moved to Memphis, and Jeannie was responsible for the states of
Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. In this position she managed
eighteen counters for Dillard's stores and for other retail
establishments. She supervised eighty people and loved the job.
Even the jobs we love the most come with significant drawbacks.
Jeannie was traveling more than three weeks each month, and this
was tough on her marriage and tough on her physically. "Sometimes
I would work so hard that I would forget to eat. I got really skinny
and sickly. So, after close to four years of this kind of life,
Mark and I agreed that something had to change." She chose to resign
her position with Estée Lauder because she could not keep up with
the demands of the job without continuing to damage her body. They
decided to move back to Oklahoma to be closer to family and friends,
drastically improving their quality of life. Her next job was with
the Oklahoma Blood Institute doing public relations and helping to
run blood drives. She realized she liked working in this nonprofit
organization because she believed in its mission, liked helping
people, and felt she was doing something good for society. She
worked there for two years before she had a hemorrhage in her eye.
When she woke on a Friday morning and found that everything she
saw was pink, she thought she was having a problem with allergies,
because it had happened before. When the problem had not improved
on Monday, she went to the doctor and on that day received 1,000
laser shots in both eyes. Problems with her vision would consume
the next year of her life. Every two weeks she was having eye
surgeries, procedures, and experimental injections. The frequent
laser treatments on both of her eyes meant that she missed a lot
of work, and the director of public relations called her in to ask
why. No doubt feeling the need to expose her repressed inner doctor,
the supervisor suggested Jeannie "get an eye transplant." In the
quest to save her vision, she could not assure her supervisor that
her attendance would improve, so she resigned. Four times during
that year of struggle to save her sight, she lost all of her vision.
Each time it would return, there would be less of it. Emotionally
she tells the story of traveling to a 7 AM Rotary Club meeting and
finding that, on that day, she had so little vision that her usual
ten-minute trip took forty-five minutes. "I freely gave up driving
because I was terrified that I was going to hurt someone else."
"I went through the next six months of surgeries and
injections and finally came to the realization that I was
mostly blind and it was going to stay that way. I couldn't
see to read or to sew, and at that point I had difficulty
figuring out anything I could really do. Part of my
self-concept is that I am a strong-willed person, but I
couldn't see how that strong will was going to save me."
Mark was initially terrified by the onset of her blindness and for
a time was very overprotective. Neither of the Massays knew a blind
person, and the only thing Jeannie knew was that blind people
carried long white canes. The rehabilitation agency had not offered
her one, she had no idea where a cane for the blind could be had,
so she began using a three-foot carved walking stick her father
had used. "Mark and I moved in with my mom because I was familiar
with the layout of her house. I started receiving library services
for the blind but was on so much medication that I really couldn't
read or enjoy the books they sent. I signed up for rehabilitation
services and tried to learn something about assistive technology,
but only once did a rehabilitation teacher come to my house for
fifteen minutes. Not knowing what else to do, I went to the Library
for the Blind in Oklahoma City and spent hours there. They offered
no formal training there, but I observed other people, listened to
what they were doing, and came to understand a bit about the
assistive technology used by blind people. "The one thing I got
from the rehabilitation agency that did seem to help was orientation
and mobility services. I appreciated my instructor because she
showed up for appointments and was the first person I could clearly
see who wanted to give me back my independence." When Jeannie
decided that she would need more training than she could get from
an occasional home visit by the Oklahoma agency, she looked at
residential rehabilitation centers. She considered attending the
Colorado Center for the Blind and was given a long white cane, but
the information she had heard about the National Federation of the
Blind and the rigor of CCB training, along with biased information
and the opinions of her counselor, convinced her that she should
attend the Carroll Center for the Blind. She was at the center
about six months, and in addition to personal adjustment to blindness
training, she also went through an office skills program so that
she could learn enough assistive technology to go back to school
and get her master's degree. As she gained confidence and a working
set of blindness skills, Mark once again saw in Jeannie the fiercely
independent woman he'd married. After her time at the Carroll
Center, Jeannie went back to school to become a therapist. Working
in the cosmetics industry had always been lucrative, but it'd never
been her passion. Mark also made the decision to go back to school,
and both graduated with their master's degrees at the same time.
After graduating in May of 2011, Jeannie set out to begin the
supervision process, part of the requirements for licensure as a
Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Oklahoma. The requirement
consists of working for a minimum of three thousand hours under a
counselor who is already licensed. Jeannie encountered discrimination
when seeking a job to complete the supervision required for her to
pursue licensure. "Although I was equally qualified and had a high
GPA, many people saw my cane and assumed that I wouldn't be able
to do the job," she said. After going on lots of interviews, Jeannie
finally found a job in October of 2011. She began counseling
children, adolescents, and their families, who deal with ADHD,
depression and anxiety disorders. Jeannie completed the state and
national exams in November of 2013 after having had issues gaining
her appropriate and desired accommodations. She passed both
examinations and will soon receive her Oklahoma state license as
a licensed professional counselor. Jeannie's first association
with an organization of the blind came when she joined the Oklahoma
Council of the Blind, the state affiliate of the American Council
of the Blind. Although she liked some of the people in the
organization, she became concerned with how much time they spent
complaining about this radical and militant organization known as
the National Federation of the Blind. She did just enough research
to realize that the NFB gave state and national scholarships,
decided that she was as competent and capable as anyone else, and
even decided that crazy, militant money was still spendable. She
did not win a national scholarship but was invited to attend the
2008 state convention in Oklahoma. There were fourteen people at
that convention and, to her surprise, Steve Shelton nominated her
for a board position. During the luncheon speech presented by the
national representative from the Federation, Jeannie was touched
by the idea of finding something larger than oneself and reaching
out to help others. Although the Oklahoma affiliate did not award
her a scholarship in 2008, it did provide resources she could use
to attend the national convention. "I was a bit overwhelmed by the
three thousand blind people in the Hilton Anatole," she said, "but
once I heard the gavel drop, I knew we had to bring this kind of
enthusiasm and the philosophy of the National Federation of the
Blind home to Oklahoma. I felt a duty and an obligation to organize
a chapter in Edmund, so Steve Shelton, Dick Morris, Selena Crawford,
and Dan Frye worked to make the first meeting possible. We had four
people attend, and I thought this was great! I told myself we would
have an awesome chapter, but at our first regular meeting only the
officers showed up. I was disappointed but resolved. The chapter
kept growing and pretty soon it came to have twenty and then thirty
people on average. We kept at it, and at the same time we worked
on developing the affiliate." Jeannie won a national scholarship
in 2009, was invited by President Maurer to attend a leadership
seminar, and at that time she told President Maurer that, when she
graduated with her master's degree, she would run to be the state
president in Oklahoma. A third chapter of the affiliate was
organized in Ardmore, Oklahoma, in 2010. Two more chapters were
chartered in 2012, one in Clinton, the West Central chapter, and
the other in Tulsa, the Brady District Chapter. The affiliate has
organized a student division and hopes to organize a Parents of
Blind Children Division in 2014. In 2011 the Oklahoma affiliate
had ten people at the national convention held in Orlando. In 2012
thirty-eight people sat in the affiliate's delegation, since the
convention was just across the Red River in Dallas, Texas. In 2013,
once again in Orlando, the number of attendees from the state rose
from ten to seventeen. Jeannie says she has never had problems
believing in the teachings of the National Federation of the Blind
regarding the need to learn blindness skills. She says that, after
her initial loss of vision, what she can see has varied so much
that she has never been tempted to put down her cane. "My vision
isn't what I use to live -- it is helpful and icing on the cake,
but it cannot meet my daily needs for travel and other activities."
Jeannie Massey was elected to the national board of directors in
July 2013. "When I was growing up, and to this day, my mother used
to ask me `What are you?' She taught me to respond in the following
way, 'I am intelligent, capable, beautiful, and lots of fun to be
with.' This was our way of affirming who I wanted to be and who I
could become, and blindness hasn't changed any of it. This is the
message I want to share with blind people: that our hopes, dreams,
goals, and aspirations are no less real simply because we do not
see."
[PHOTO CAPTION: Alpidio Rolón]
Alpidio Rolón NFB of Puerto Rico
President
Veteran and Advocate
The needs of the blind of Puerto Rico are legion. With the support
of the membership of the National Federation of the Blind of Puerto
Rico, this board member has made it his personal mission to lead
his affiliate to work for improved and modernized opportunities
for education, employment, and daily life for all blind people in
this somewhat isolated part of the United States. Now on the national
board, he is expanding his work to include improved opportunities
for all blind people nationwide. Alpidio Rolón, the only child
of Marcela GarcÃa and Alpidio Rolón, was born on June 20, 1949,
in New York City. Seven years later his family moved back to Puerto
Rico, where he has lived since 1956. He volunteered for service in
the US Army in July 1969, completed basic and advanced infantry
training, then was sent to Vietnam in January of 1970. A rifle-propelled
grenade that blew up in front of him blinded him on April 7, 1970.
Three weeks later young Rolón was sent to Walter Reed Army Medical
Center in Washington, DC, where he learned basic orientation and
mobility skills and was treated for perforated eardrums caused by
the exploding grenade. He later spent six months at the Central
Blind Rehabilitation Center of the Hines Veterans Administration
Hospital in Chicago. There he learned the blindness skills that
would permit him to live independently. Rolón graduated magna
cum laude from the University of Puerto Rico in 1976, obtaining a
bachelor's degree in liberal arts with an Hispanic studies major.
Continuing his interest in Hispanic studies at the master's level,
he completed both courses and comprehensive test requirements. At
the University of Puerto Rico be began advocating for the rights
of blind people. Although he had belonged to other blind consumer
organizations, he says that it wasn't until 1991 -- when he became
part of the NFB of Puerto Rico organizing committee -- that he
began to believe that he could really do something worthwhile to
help the blind, that joining the National Federation of the Blind
was like coming home. Rolón was first elected as treasurer of the
NFB of Puerto Rico in 1992 and has served as its president since
1996. He was elected to the board of directors of the National
Federation of the Blind in July of 2006.
Rolón has combined his love of Spanish and his commitment
to the National Federation of the Blind by translating NFB
materials into Spanish. He was first motivated to do so
when he heard Dr. Kenneth Jernigan's speech "On the Nature
of Independence" at the NFB national convention in 1993,
in Dallas, Texas. He has since translated other speeches
and Braille Monitor articles, served as a real-time translator
of banquet speeches at national conventions, and edited
inspirational personal stories written by members of the
National Federation of the Blind of Puerto Rico of the kind
that appear in the NFB Kernel Books. Alpidio Rolón is
the president of the Society of Friends of the Regional
Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of Puerto
Rico. In that capacity he has guided the Society into
producing Braille and recorded books in Spanish for blind
children in Puerto Rico. To further his goal of improving
educational and job opportunities for blind children and
adults, he serves as president of the Advisory Council of
the Puerto Rico Assistive Technology Program.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Joseph Ruffalo, Jr.]
Joseph Ruffalo Jr. NFB of New Jersey
President
Mentor, Community Leader, Activist, and Family Man
Born July 6, 1949, in Montclair and raised in Bloomfield,
New Jersey, Joseph Ruffalo, Jr., had already graduated from
Bloomfield High School, attended Montclair State College,
and served America in Vietnam, where he earned a Bronze
Star, before he learned in 1976 that retinitis pigmentosa
would slowly claim his vision. For six years he continued
his work as a manager in a Thom McAn shoe store, but by
1983 he began looking for guidance about how to achieve
greater proficiency and control over his life as a blind
adult. The staff at the Joseph Kohn Rehabilitation Center
(JKRC), then located in Newark, told him he should not learn to
use a cane, read Braille, or master any adaptive devices because
he still had enough vision to do without them. Though eager to
obtain the necessary skills, at the time Joe believed he had no
recourse but to adhere to the advice of the only professionals he
knew. Not until 1986 did he learn to use a cane, and he accomplished
that by teaching himself. While at JKRC, Joe discovered a talent
for baking, which led to a successful nine-year career as the owner
of a pastry business. In 1988 Joe tentatively attended his first
NFB chapter meeting in Newark. He reports that after ten minutes
he knew that his life was about to change dramatically. Realizing
that the NFB was a place of fraternity and empowerment, empathy
and accomplishment, Joe says, "I saw blind people doing things I
wanted to do. They were holding jobs, volunteering, and achieving
in every pursuit." This was the beginning of Joe's own growth and
achievement. In 1990 he became second vice president of the New
Jersey affiliate; two years later he was first vice president; and
by 1993 he was president of the NFB of New Jersey, a position he
maintains to this day. "It is a tremendous honor and responsibility
to promote positive attitudes about blindness and the abilities of
blind people," Joe comments. But Joe's community involvement has
not been limited to the National Federation of the Blind. He has
been a leader in the Lions Club for over twenty-five years, serving
as president for three. He has also held positions as zone/regent
chair and serves on the District 16-E cabinet. In over twenty-four
years with the Knights of Columbus, Joe has held the positions of
guard, warden, and deputy grand knight, and was an active member
of the Boy Scouts of America for over fourteen years. As past
president of the Special Education Parent and Professional Organization
for thirteen years and past chairman of the board of trustees of
the New Jersey Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired, he
has further worked to assure the full integration of people with
disabilities into society. Joe attended the Therapeutic Massage
Center to obtain certification in massage therapy and from 1998 to
2000 provided massage for staff, patients, and visitors at Clara
Maass Medical Center in Belleville, before moving his practice to
a private office. He has served as a consultant to the Somerset
School of Massage, making recommendations to staff and students
and answering questions about training methods for blind students.
Joe also worked to smooth others' transitions from dependence to
independence as a leader in two programs sponsored by the New Jersey
Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired. He was previously
employed by the First Occupational Center of New Jersey as a program
specialist in the Senior Community Independent Living Services
(SCILS) program, which identifies people over age fifty-five in
Essex and Ocean counties who have experienced vision loss, with
the goal of teaching independence skills so that these seniors can
remain active in the community and independent in their homes. As
state program director and northern region coordinator of the
Leadership, Education, Advocacy, and Determination (LEAD) program,
administered in partnership with Heightened Independence and
Progress, Joe provided mentoring activities for blind teenagers
and their families. Unfortunately, the LEAD program was terminated
as of October 1, 2013. Joe's many contributions to the community
were recognized in November 2000 when he was honored with the
Partnership for Progress Award at the New Jersey Commission's
Believe and Achieve ninetieth anniversary celebration. In July 2001
his leadership in the blindness community was again acknowledged
when he was elected to the board of directors of the National
Federation of the Blind. In October of 2002 the State of New Jersey
honored Joe by presenting him with the New Jersey Vietnam Service
Medal. Joe has always been encouraged and supported by his wife
of thirty-six years, Judy, and his two sons, Joseph and James. In
his spare time Joe likes sports of all kinds, especially baseball
and basketball, and enjoys hosting Thru Our Eyes, an Internet radio
program <www.thruoureyes.org [HYPERLINK: http://www.thruoureyes.org]>
that highlights blindness issues, discusses technology, and promotes
positive attitudes about blindness. Joe's life and work express
his commitment to the blind and their struggle for equality in
society. His achievements stand as an example for others, like
those of the Federationists who deeply impressed him at his first
chapter meeting. He achieves and grows, facing every challenge with
energy, enthusiasm, and common sense. In so doing, he exemplifies
his belief that "one of the most important things for members of
the blind community to do is to teach the public that blindness is
only a characteristic. With the proper training, skills, attitude,
and techniques, blindness can be reduced to a physical nuisance."
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Anil Lewis] The Glass is Half Full: Investing in
the Capacity of Workers with Disabilities
by Anil Lewis
>From the Editor: Anil Lewis is the most visible member of our
organization working with Congress to repeal Section 14(c) of the
Fair Labor Standards Act, the section which allows the payment of
less than the federal minimum wage to blind people and others with
disabilities. In this article he addresses questions some have
about the consequences of repealing this section, explores the
faulty assumptions that argue for its preservation, and demonstrates
his belief in the innate ability of the human spirit to overcome
obstacles too many of us think insurmountable. As we consider his
arguments, it is instructive to remember that Anil was initially
diagnosed as a person with a developmental disability, and only
through his mother's perseverance and belief in him was he able to
attend public school, graduate, and go on to earn a master's degree
in public administration. Here is what he says:
Members of the National Federation of the Blind believe that, given
the proper training, support, and opportunity, people with disabilities
can live the lives we want. Although some specialized public services
may be required for our full participation, those provisions that
exclude us from the same rights and protections as everyone else
limit us to a lesser existence. Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor
Standards Act (FLSA) is an unfair, immoral, discriminatory provision
that allows entities to obtain a Special Wage Certificate from the
US Department of Labor permitting them to pay workers with disabilities
less than the federal minimum wage. These entities are almost always
sheltered workshops, segregated workplaces that employ workers with
various disabilities -- including sensory, physical, and cognitive
or developmental disabilities -- at subminimum wages that are
sometimes pennies per hour. This has been considered by some to be
an essential tool for workers with disabilities. There are so many
rationalizations touting the value and purpose of this provision.
Some state that it is employment; others state that it is a training
program; still others state that it is both training and employment.
The last group states that it simply provides something for people
with disabilities to do during the day. Regardless of which of
these excuses is used to attempt to justify the existence of this
provision, they all promote the misconception that people with
disabilities are less capable and less productive than those without
disabilities. The truth is that most, if not all, people with
disabilities, when they receive specialized rehabilitation and
training, can acquire a job skill that allows them to be competitive
with nondisabled workers and to earn the federal minimum wage or
higher. Most people are unaware of the rehabilitation and training
strategies that make this possible and therefore believe that it
is impossible. The fundamental question is whether we should, out
of ignorance, support programs that believe the glass is half empty
or whether we should, as an enlightened society, invest in programs
that realize the glass is half full.
We must start with the facts. As a result of the antiquated
Section 14(c) model, there are over four hundred thousand
people with disabilities currently working for wages less
than the federal minimum wage. Approximately two hundred
thousand of these people are paid less than half of it,
and approximately one hundred thousand are paid less than
one dollar per hour. 33 percent of students with significant
disabilities are being prepared for segregated subminimum-wage
employment rather than competitive integrated work. The
demonstrated outcome is that fewer than 5 percent of these
people will transition into competitive integrated employment
(work in a non-segregated environment at the federal minimum
wage or higher). Therefore, 95 percent of these people will
spend their entire working lives in a segregated subminimum-wage
environment performing tedious, sometimes disgusting tasks
promoted as work. The segregated subminimum-wage employers
peddle their programs as the solution, when they are really
the problem. These employers reference the 70 percent
unemployment rate of people with disabilities and assert
that the existence of subminimum-wage payments is an
essential tool to keep this statistic from getting worse.
These "employers" have had over seventy years to use this
"essential tool" to effect a positive change in the employment
of people with disabilities and their strategy has failed
miserably. It should be no surprise that a strategy founded
on the belief that a person cannot be a productive employee
results in nonproductive employees. The pseudo-work
environments that pay individuals pennies per hour for
performing mundane tasks are no better than the day
habilitation environments they profess to replace. These
shelters of low expectations rob individuals with disabilities
of their real self-worth and the opportunity to achieve a
better life. It is past time for us to invest our time and
energy in the development of new models that result in more
positive outcomes. Under the Employment First paradigm,
proven models exist that help people with significant
disabilities acquire practical job skills and competitive
integrated employment. These strategies have been proven
successful for people who were previously trapped in
segregated subminimum-wage work environments, where they
were told every day by the so-called experts that this is
the best they can achieve. Customized employment and
supported employment strategies are being used to successfully
transition people with significant disabilities into
competitive integrated work environments after years of
institutionalization. We should abandon the archaic segregated
subminimum-wage model and embrace the proven Employment
First model that recognizes the true value of workers with
disabilities, costs less, and produces better outcomes.
We know that it can be done because, as a result of our
advocacy, it is being done. Many organizations formerly
using Special Wage Certificates have converted to a
competitive integrated model in which every employee is
paid at least the federal minimum wage. All but one of the
National Industries for the Blind (NIB) affiliated agencies
pay the federal minimum wage or higher to all of their
workers with disabilities employed under the AbilityOne
program, a special program created by the federal government
and formerly known as the Committee for People Who are
Blind or Severely Disabled. Already, 101 Goodwill affiliates
operate successfully without paying subminimum wages. These
affiliates work with similar populations of people with
disabilities as the sixty-four Goodwill affiliates that
assert that the Special Wage Certificate is an essential
tool. When challenged with this fact, Goodwill representatives
state that the difference between these two operational
philosophies comes down to a local choice. The sixty-four
subminimum-wage Goodwill affiliates are permitted to choose
to use the Special Wage Certificate and Goodwill International
refuses to adopt a policy that prohibits them from making
this choice. Thankfully our advocacy efforts have driven
Goodwill affiliates and other segregated subminimum-wage
employers to begin to adopt similar non-discriminatory
business models. We could just cling to the hope that once
our efforts have resulted in an increased number of Goodwill
affiliates making the successful transition to this proven
business model, Goodwill International would finally adopt
a policy that prohibits the use of this immoral discriminatory
provision, and all segregated subminimum-wage entities
would transition to this proven business model. Unfortunately,
as long as it is legal, entities will continue to choose
to pay workers with disabilities less than the federal
minimum wage -- business will always cut labor costs when
the economy or the law allow it. In order to effect real
systemic change, this ineffective provision must be
eliminated. The Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities
Act of 2013, HR 831, will responsibly phase out and eventually
repeal Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act. As
a result, people with the most significant disabilities
will no longer be trapped in segregated subminimum-wage
workshops. Entities will no longer be able to choose to
employ workers with disabilities at subminimum wages.
For-profit entities will have one year, public and governmental
entities will have two years, and nonprofit entities will
have three years to transition to a proven competitive
integrated training and employment business model that
helps people with significant disabilities to obtain real
jobs at real wages. We cannot guarantee that every individual
currently employed at subminimum wages will be employed at
the federal minimum wage or higher at the end of this
three-year period. However, these people will be on a path
toward competitive integrated employment, rather than being
condemned to a lifetime of segregated subminimum-wage
pseudo-work. The legislation does not require an employer
currently paying an individual with a disability twenty-two
cents per hour to immediately pay this individual $7.25
per hour. Therefore, it places no financial hardship on
existing employers in the form of increased labor costs.
The goal is not to subsidize wages; the goal is for workers
with disabilities to acquire a job skill that will allow
them to earn at least the federal minimum wage. If an entity
is unable to provide proper training and support to assist
an individual in obtaining competitive integrated employment,
why should we continue to allow people with disabilities
to suffer because of the inadequacy of the service provider?
HR 831 eliminates the ability for an entity to be considered
a successful employer by paying people subminimum wages
rather than providing real work at real wages. As with any
mainstream training or employment program, the entity must
adopt a business model that provides quality training
leading to the acquisition of a marketable job skill and
competitive integrated employment for the majority of its
students in order to continue to operate. The largest
obstacle to our achieving this necessary systemic change
is the ignorance and prejudice that has stunted the
progression toward equal status of minority groups in our
society time and time again. As a society we believe that
those who are different are inferior. We feel that if we
were faced with blindness, deafness, cerebral palsy, or
another physical or developmental disability, we would not
be able to succeed. Society asks representatives of entities
that profit from this misconception for their opinion and
we are told that these environments are necessary. These
entities allow us to observe people with disabilities who,
having received poor training and minimal support, are
unable to effectively perform tasks in pseudo-work
environments, and our beliefs of incapacity are reinforced.
As a society we do not question the quality of the training
or the qualifications of the professionals. We do not
attempt to understand whether the assigned job task meets
the individual's unique skills, interests, and abilities.
What job skill can you acquire sorting hangers all day?
How competitive an employee can you become by screwing caps
on pens for a living? Although we know this environment
would not be appropriate for us, we, with no knowledge of
appropriate strategies or interventions, acquiesce and
agree that this is an appropriate and even essential
environment for others. How many of us would continue to
send our children to schools that openly state that they
cannot teach our children? How many of us would attend a
vocational training program that would not teach us an
employable skill? How many of us would choose to work at
a job that pays less than the federal minimum wage? None
of us, but it seems acceptable to have different answers
to these questions when we are referring to people with
disabilities. Even many of us with disabilities make this
assumption about others with disabilities that we perceive
to be more significant than our own. We simply assume that
these "other people with disabilities" cannot learn a
competitive job skill and that they should therefore be
pleased to work at subminimum wages to get the so-called
"tangible and intangible benefits of work." Segregated
subminimum-wage workshop representatives ask, "Would you
pay a full wage to a person who only works at 30 percent
of normal productivity?" This is the wrong question. We
should ask why the workshop, with its purported expertise
in the training and employment of people with disabilities,
is only able to assist the individual to reach 30 percent
productivity when other entities are assisting similar
people to acquire competitive job skills. No one challenges
the competence or qualifications of the entities that
represent themselves as quality training and employment
programs for people with disabilities. Despite the fact
that there are countless examples of people faced with
significant disabilities who are successfully working in
a variety of jobs, society believes that these people have
no potential for competitive integrated employment because
the program directors tell us so. We continue to support
these programs even though they do not teach self-confidence,
self-worth, alternative techniques, or any skills that
would empower people with disabilities to secure employment
and leave the rolls of poverty and public assistance. In
any other instance it would be pure foolishness to use
public funds to pay for schools where students do not learn,
to pay for vocational programs that do not teach a marketable
skill, or to provide public support for jobs that pay less
than the federal minimum wage. Phasing out the use of
segregated subminimum-wage training environments is supported
by research, countless case studies, and cost benefit
analysis. So why is it so difficult to gain support for
the long overdue repeal of Section 14(c) of the FLSA as
outlined in HR 831, the Fair Wages for Workers with
Disabilities Act? The simple fact is that it is easier to
place people with significant disabilities in segregated
environments to keep them away from the rest of society.
We even cloud this outrageous act of discrimination by
masking it as a demonstration of compassion for those less
fortunate by placing them in safe sheltered environments
for their own protection. We yield to those who profit from
their false assertions of incapacity rather than fight for
the rights of those being exploited. It takes courage to
confront discrimination. It takes time and energy to invest
in strategies and programs that work. We can take the easy
way out and prepare the next generation of workers with
disabilities for the segregated subminimum-wage workshops,
or we can phase out the use of Section 14(c) and invest in
the true capacity of workers with disabilities. The
employment statistics for workers with disabilities are
far from ideal, but this is not a reason to accept the
glass-half-empty logic of allowing workers with disabilities
to work in useless jobs that pay them less than the federal
minimum wage. The glass is in fact half-full, because
strategies exist that allow workers with disabilities to
obtain competitive, integrated employment. As a society we
must invest time and resources in expanding the use of
these strategies. This approach will ultimately create a
more positive future for all Americans with disabilities.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Michael Barber]
Yet Another Federationist Speaks Out on Subminimum Wages
by Michael Barber
From the Editor: The following article is reprinted from
the Opinion page in the December 21, 2013, issue of the
Des Moines Register with their kind permission. It is
written by Michael D. Barber, the president of the Iowa
affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind, and he
can be contacted by email at <michael.nfbi at gmail.com
[HYPERLINK: mailto:michael.nfbi at gmail.com]>. Here is what
he has to say:
Iowa View: Harkin's Antiquated Stand on Disabled Wages
As a blind person who leads a statewide organization of blind
people, I am often asked: "What is the greatest challenge blind
people face?" My answer usually surprises people: For the blind,
as for all people with disabilities, our biggest problem is other
people's attitudes about our disabilities and about how we should
be treated. Everyone wants to help us, but the kind of help they
want to give isn't always the kind of help we need. When we try to
explain this, we are told that we are being unreasonable or, worse,
ungrateful.
Why can't we accept the things that society is willing to
give us and believes to be best for us? The answer is
simple: Like all other Americans, we demand freedom, not
the care of supposedly benevolent custodians. US Sen. Tom
Harkin, D-Ia., has been the political champion of people
with disabilities for many years and was a key proponent
of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),
the civil rights act for people with disabilities. The
adulation he has justifiably received for his advocacy has,
however, given him the impression that he can speak for
us. Sen. Harkin has mistaken our appreciation of his past
service for permission to advance a public policy that will
set us back in our struggle for equality. He is endorsing
an antiquated and immoral practice that allows workers with
disabilities to be paid less than the minimum wage. Section
14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act allows certain
employers to pay less than the federal minimum wage --
usually "sheltered workshops," the term for segregated
factories set up specifically for workers with disabilities.
Some of these workshops not only pay their workers mere
pennies per hour, but they have them working in abhorrent
conditions where the workers are physically and psychologically
abused. The Des Moines Register reported extensively on
such a case, that of Henry's Turkey Service, which paid
workers at an Iowa turkey processing plant forty-one cents
per hour and housed them in a roach-infested, unheated
building. In a recent bill known as the Workforce Investment
Act, reauthorization was approved by the Senate Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions Committee, which Sen. Harkin chairs. Language
was included in Title V, Section 511, that purports to reduce the
number of youth with disabilities placed in a sheltered workshop.
Although the intent is laudable, the policy endorses
segregated subminimum-wage environments as viable training
and employment options for workers with disabilities. There
is a better way to stop young people from becoming victims
of subminimum-wage employment: Responsibly phase out the
use of this practice over a three-year period, allowing
existing entities to convert to a proven business model
that leads to competitive integrated employment of people
with disabilities. That's what another bill, the Fair
Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act, would do. Rep.
Gregg Harper, R-Miss., introduced this legislation, and it
currently has nearly 50 co-sponsors and is supported by
the National Federation of the Blind and over 60 other
organizations of people with disabilities. Americans with
disabilities have tried to convince members of the US Senate
to support a responsible phase-out of subminimum wages,
like that introduced by Rep. Harper, rather than the
ineffective, half measure proposed in Sen. Harkin's bill.
We have offered objective policy analysis, historical data,
case studies, and descriptions of alternative best practices.
We have provided data demonstrating that the archaic
sheltered segregated model costs more and produces poorer
outcomes for workers with disabilities. We have informed
senators about alternatives for competitive, integrated
employment that assist even those with significant disabilities
in acquiring job skills that allow them to earn at least
the federal minimum wage. But rather than considering the
merits of our arguments, most respond with this insulting
question: "How does Sen. Harkin feel about this?" With all
due respect to Sen. Harkin, he is not a person with a
disability and cannot speak for us. His reputation as a
champion of the rights of people with disabilities came
about because, in the past, he listened to us and put
forward legislation in response to what he heard. When he
rejects our advice, as he is doing by putting forward
Section 511, he is no longer a champion but a custodian,
seeking to substitute his own idea of what is best for us.
Sen. Harkin helped Americans with disabilities achieve
important milestones on our road to freedom. But freedom
cannot be achieved while Section 14(c) remains in force
and its grinding, soul-crushing machinery is merely tinkered
with. If Sen. Harkin wants to secure his legacy as a
champion of Americans with disabilities, he should amend
the Workforce Investment Act to remove Section 511 and
introduce a Senate companion to the Fair Wages for Workers
with Disabilities Act. These are the legitimate demands
that millions of Americans with disabilities, speaking for
ourselves, have put forward. Sen. Harkin and his colleagues
must recognize and act upon them.
---------- Déjà Vu All Over
Again
From the Editor: Since the introduction of Section 511 to
the Workforce Investment Act and the focus it has returned
to Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, I have
been approached by members to ask how we have arrived at
our new position on the right of the blind to earn at least
the minimum wage. I tell them that this position is not
new, and that any war will require the shifting of emphasis
from battle to battle. Recently Dan Burke ran across
several articles from The Blind American, a publication of
the American Brotherhood for the Blind, which was distributed
by them when the National Federation of the Blind had
temporarily discontinued the publication of the Braille
Monitor because of shortfalls in our funding. As Dan says
about these articles, "The history of our opposition alone
is compelling, the arguments then as cogent and as crucial
as ours today, and the interim half-century of continued
exploitation of workers with disabilities and the powerful
defense of vested `helper' interests every bit as execrable."
Keep in mind that these articles are from The Blind American,
April 1964, Volume IV, No. 2, and take note of exactly how
little the debate has changed:
Congress Hears Sheltered Shop Wage Bills
Bills which would extend the minimum wage provisions of
the Fair Labor Standards Act to cover disabled workers in
sheltered workshops -- many of whom are blind persons --
were given a significant public hearing on April 6 by a
subcommittee of the House of Representatives. Testifying
in favor of the minimum-wage proposals was John F. Nagle,
chief of the Washington Office of the National Federation
of the Blind, who presented an oral statement and participated
in subsequent discussion. A joint written statement favoring
the legislation was submitted by Dr. Jacobus tenBroek,
president of the American Brotherhood for the Blind, and
James McGinnis, president of the California Council of the
Blind. Appearing in opposition to the wage bills were
Peter J. Salmon, head of Brooklyn's Industrial Home for
the Blind, and Tony Suazo, executive director of the National
Association of Sheltered Workshops and Homebound Industries.
The two identical measures under consideration are H.R.
9904 and H.R. 9928, introduced by Congressmen John Dent
and Dominick Daniels, both of whom are members of the
General Subcommittee on Labor of the House Education and
Labor Committee, which conducted the hearings. In addition
to Congressman Dent two members of the subcommittee were
present: Roman Pucinski, Illinois, and Alonzo Bell,
California. (Other members are listed below.) The measures
call for a series of progressive wage increases for sheltered
shop workers, requiring that they be paid not less than 50
percent of the prevailing national minimum (now $1.25 per
hour) by January 1965, not less than 75 percent by the
following year, and that, by January 1967, the sheltered
workers must receive not less than the prevailing hourly
minimum wage. Salmon and Suazo, speaking against the bills
on behalf of sheltered shop management, were subjected to
sharp questioning and comments by Congressmen Dent and
Pucinski. For example, when Salmon presented figures on
costs and income for his Brooklyn workshop, Congressman
Dent noted that the labor costs represented only about 16
percent of gross sales revenue and asserted that he had
never before heard of any business with such low labor
costs in relation to income. Again, when the Brooklyn
workshop executive sought to justify his low wage rates by
lamenting the allegedly poor productive capacities of blind
shop workers, the NFB's John Nagle intervened to point out
that the great majority of blind and handicapped workers
in sheltered workshops have sufficient capacity to compete
on an equal basis in competitive employment if they are
provided with proper training and adjustment services along
with skilled help in securing employment. In his oral
testimony before the House subcommittee, Nagle urged the
legislators "to recognize that disabled workers have the
same problems as other workers, and share in common the
same needs. We ask you to recognize and remedy the sorry
plight of these workers -- for their plight is a sorry
one," he said. The National Federation of the Blind official
pointed out that "not only are these men and women in
sheltered workshops not protected by the minimum wage
provisions...but they are specifically denied this protection
by the very provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act."
Nagle noted that in 1963 "nearly half of the sheltered
workshops investigated were paying some of their disabled
workers less than the very low wage rates presently permitted
by law -- and the number of such violations discovered
shows a threefold increase over the previous year."
tenBroek-McGinnis Statement
California Council President McGinnis joined Dr. tenBroek,
head of the American Brotherhood, in a detailed statement
documenting the grievances of blind sheltered shop workers
throughout the country with respect to wages and general
working conditions. The two blind leaders asserted that
"the tragic fact is that no consistent and generally
agreed-upon" definition has yet been achieved as to the
character and function of sheltered workshops and the status
of the handicapped workers. "Until a clear, acceptable
and just definition can be devised, the identity of these
disabled workers must remain in jeopardy and at issue --
with resultant waste, confusion, conflict and failure on
all sides," they said. The joint Brotherhood-Council
statement noted that in most of the public and official
discussion on workshops, "one voice is rarely heard. That
is the voice of the disabled worker himself, characteristically
a blind person, whose concern in the matter is at once the
most direct and vital of all." Pointing out that "no outside
groups or interests can in truth speak for the disabled
worker in the sheltered shop," their statement continued:
"Only the worker himself can do that -- both directly, on
the rare occasions when his individual voice may be heard,
and indirectly through his own democratic voluntary
organizations. "During the past few years the voice of
the shop worker has in fact been heard with increasing
force and clarity," tenBroek and McGinnis said. "Blind
workers in particular have made use of their own voluntary
state associations, united in the National Federation of
the Blind, to give organized expression to their demand
for an adequate definition of their status and a reasonable
reward for their labor. "At the same time they have been
systematically beginning to organize as an employee group,
seeking union affiliation and recognition, and collective
bargaining rights, through negotiation where possible and
through strike action where necessary," the statement
observed. Citing a long series of militant activities by
sheltered shop workers in various parts of the country --
notably in Cleveland, Dallas, St. Louis, San Diego, and
Berkeley -- the tenBroek-McGinnis statement focused upon
"three main points of grievance" commonly raised by the
handicapped workers in their organized protests: "First,
low wages consistently below the national minimum, coupled
with discrimination and inequities in job classifications
which have the effect of barring blind workers from normal
advancement opportunities open to all others; "Second, poor
management, in terms both of simple ineptness and of
irrational prejudice against the workers -- the former
expressed in terms of unnecessary delays, layoffs, low-quality
production, and excessive operating costs -- the latter in
terms of contemptuous attitudes and outright bullying
directed against the blind workers; and "Third, inadequate
training methods, carried out by unqualified instructors,
performed on obsolete and poorly maintained equipment, and
reflecting stereotyped convictions of the inability of
blind persons to master any trades other than the most
elementary and menial. "The protest which is embodied in
this wave of militant activity on the part of blind and
disabled sheltered workers is unmistakable. It is a protest
against an employment situation intolerable in its inequities
and injustice; and it is a demand for recognition of the
minimum rights of shop workers both as free citizens and
as employees," the blind leaders said. Letters supporting
the two progressive wage bills for sheltered shop workers
-- H.R. 9904 and H.R. 9928 -- should be sent to the Hon.
James Roosevelt, Chairman, General Subcommittee on Labor,
Committee on Education and Labor, US House of Representatives,
Washington 25, DC. Letters should also be sent to any
subcommittee members who are from your state. The other
members are: John Dent, PA; Roman Pucinski, IL; Dominick
Daniels, NJ; Thomas Gill, Hawaii; Augustus Hawkins, Calif.
These are the Democratic members of the Subcommittee. The
Republicans are: William H. Ayres, Ohio; Charles E. Goddell,
NY; Dave Martin, Neb.; Alonzo Bell, Calif.
California's Blind Workers Show Vision
by Bud Aronson
(Editor's note: Mr. Aronson is secretary-treasurer of the Union of
State Employees, Local 411, AFL-CIO, the union responsible for the
successful organization of blind workers in California Industries
for the Blind workshops. A former intern with the Coro Foundation,
Mr. Aronson prepared his article for publication in the March 1964
issue of the Foundation's bulletin.)
The wondrous joy flowing from the visual perception of a
multitude of daily sights is not the only benefit denied
blind workers in the State of California. Hundreds of
sightless men and women employed in the State's sheltered
workshops, known as California Industries for the Blind,
are also deprived of many basic forms of protection accorded
to their sighted counterparts in both private and public
employment. Most important of the missing benefits is
protection under the State's minimum wage law. Also noticeably
lacking is a guaranteed work week. Consequently, it is
perfectly legal to pay these workers as little as 50, 60
or 70 cents per hour, and it is equally legal to send them
home after they report to work or to instruct them not to
come to work for one or a number of days. Of course,
abundant explanations are readily available as to why blind
workers are not treated just like any other workers. The
usual argument advanced by government sources is that the
blind in the sheltered workshops are primarily trainees
rather than employees, that the chief objective of the
workshop is to provide them with the vocational and personal
rehabilitation necessary to equip them for a successful,
gainful life on the outside. According to this theory,
their stay in the workshop should be as brief as is possible,
and as soon as the rehabilitation process has been completed,
they should be placed on remunerative, outside jobs. The
only trouble with this argument is that few workers ever
graduate from workshops to outside employment. The great
majority are destined to remain at their same old stand
making brooms and mattresses, or sewing and folding linen
for the remainder of their productive lives. Perhaps
someday when society is more understanding and cooperative,
or when the workshops teach more meaningful and adaptable
skills, workshops may indeed become the mere stopping-off
places they are intended to be, but, in the meantime, there
is not the slightest indication that their present role is
about to change. In this context, it was not particularly
surprising that in early 1963 the overwhelming majority of
the 80 workers at the Berkeley GIB plant should see fit to
become members of the Union of State Employees, Local 411,
AFL-CIO. After all, their grievances were numerous and
important, and years of dissatisfaction gave no rise to
hope of their solution. What was surprising, at least to
many observers, was the tenacious militancy they would
exhibit, a militancy which was to prove once and for always
that sightlessness had not deprived them of the ability to
recognize their own self-interest. Early in May a number
of broom makers engaged in a brief work-stoppage when their
demands for improvements were not met. Acquiescence by
management resulted in a speedy resumption of production.
However, workshop officials then retaliated by laying off
forty workers -- one half of the entire work force.
Management's contention that the layoff was forced by a
surplus of unsold brooms piled up in the workshop was belied
by Local 411's discovery that a large order for 800 dozen
brooms had been placed by the State with a Texas organization.
It was at this point that the workers had to choose between
insuring their jobs and returning to the old frustrating
existence, or to take a calculated risk by remaining with
the Union and "voting with their feet." Their decision was
virtually unanimous: to go out on strike. Fully sanctioned
by the Alameda Central Labor Council and supported by all
organized labor, the entire work force -- with four lone
exceptions -- left their jobs and set up a picket line
around the plant. Another delegation of strikers was sent
to Sacramento, where picket lines were established outside
the State Capitol, while the Legislature was in session,
and the building of the Department of Education, which at
that time administered the blind workshops. Legislators
and State officials were equally surprised and apparently
disturbed to see blind pickets, some of them accompanied
by seeing-eye dogs, marching in orderly fashion around
their buildings. Two days of strike action, aided by
generous publicity in all the communications media, led to
a successful conclusion of the first authentic strike of
blind workers in California history. Terms of the settlement
included immediate rehiring of all workers -- including
the forty whose layoff precipitated the work stoppage --
and management's agreement to negotiate on all outstanding
issues. Although the story is far from finished, this new
chapter augurs well for the future of blind workers in the
State. That they will no longer stand for the exploitive
practices of the past has been demonstrated in unmistakable
terms. Better wages, improved working conditions, and,
above all else, attainment of the same dignity and recognition
sought by all mankind since the beginning of time -- these
are the goals of California's blind workers.
---------- Consider a Charitable
Gift
Making a charitable gift can be one of the most satisfying
experiences in life. Each year millions of people contribute
their time, talent, and treasure to charitable organizations.
When you plan for a gift to the National Federation of the
Blind, you are not just making a donation; you are leaving
a legacy that insures a future for blind people throughout
the country. Special giving programs are available through
the National Federation of the Blind (NFB).
Points to Consider When Making a Gift to the National Federation
of the Blind * Will my gift serve to advance the mission of the
NFB? * Am I giving the most appropriate asset? * Have I selected
the best way to make my gift? * Have I considered the tax consequences
of my gift? * Have I sought counsel from a competent advisor? *
Have I talked to the NFB planned giving officer about my gift?
Benefits of Making a Gift to the NFB * Helping the NFB fulfill its
mission
+ Receiving income tax savings through a charitable deduction *
Making capital gain tax savings on contribution of some appreciated
gifts * Providing retained payments for the life of a donor or
other beneficiaries * Eliminating federal estate tax in certain
situations * Reducing estate settlement cost
Your Gift Will Help Us * Make the study of science and math a real
possibility for blind children * Provide hope and training for
seniors losing vision * Promote state and chapter programs and
provide information that will educate blind people * Advance
technology helpful to the blind * Create a state-of-the-art library
on blindness * Train and inspire professionals working with the
blind * Provide critical information to parents of blind children
* Mentor blind people trying to find jobs Your gift makes you a
part of the NFB dream!
----------
The Secret to Winning a National Federation of the Blind
Scholarship
by Patti S. Gregory-Chang
From the Editor: Patti Chang is the chairman of one of the
most important committees of the National Federation of
the Blind. She and her committee are charged with advertising
our scholarship program and choosing thirty students who
evidence academic success, leadership, and a demonstrated
commitment to helping others. Here is Patti's announcement
about the 2014 scholarship program:
Each July at our national convention the National Federation of
the Blind gives a broad array of scholarships to recognize achievement
by blind scholars. We offer thirty scholarships, and all are
substantial and prestigious enough to warrant any student's time
to complete and compete. Our $12,000 Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship
is the largest. The NFB Scholarship Program is our investment in
the future of blind people who demonstrate scholastic aptitude,
leadership, and service. I encourage every blind college student
to apply. I am sometimes asked what the secret is to winning an
NFB scholarship. I am going to tell you the secret. First of all,
applicants must meet the eligibility requirements to receive a
scholarship. All applicants for these scholarships must be legally
blind; must reside in one of our fifty states, the District of
Columbia, or Puerto Rico; must be pursuing or planning to pursue
a full-time postsecondary course of study in a degree program at
an accredited United States institution in the fall academic year;
and, if chosen, must participate in the entire NFB national convention
and in all scheduled scholarship activities. Many think the key
to becoming a winner is a high grade point average. Others believe
it is based on participation in extracurricular activities. Still
others think it is one's level of commitment to the NFB. While
grade point average is important because it demonstrates the ability
to learn and be successful academically, it is not the only attribute
that influences the scholarship committee. Participation in
extracurricular activities is important in portraying oneself as
a well-rounded person; it is not sufficient in itself to justify
a scholarship award. Committed members of the organization recognize
the attributes that are important to committee members when
determining who wins a scholarship. The scholarship program is a
tremendous tool for us to develop future leaders of the National
Federation of the Blind, but scholarship awards are not restricted
to members of the organization. The National Federation of the
Blind is an organization dedicated to creating opportunity for all
blind people. Recipients of NFB scholarships need not be members
of the National Federation of the Blind. Many of our past winners
were not even aware of the NFB before they applied for our
scholarships. When you check the lists of past winners, you will
see that students of all ages and in widely differing fields have
won over the years. The class of 2013 included students entering
their freshman year, as well as older students who were nearly
ready to write their PhD dissertations. Past winners are working
toward credentials for employment in diverse fields. There is
truly only one way to win an NFB scholarship: that is to apply.
Each November the new, updated scholarship application forms are
posted on the Web at <www.nfb.org/scholarships [HYPERLINK:
http://www.nfb.org/scholarships]>, along with important information
about the contest, links to information on past winners, and a page
of frequently asked questions. The application form for 2014 is
already online. It will remain up until March 31, 2014. The process
can be initiated with an online application, which we prefer, or
students can ask for a print application by contacting our scholarship
office at <scholarships at nfb.org> or by calling (410) 659-9314, ext.
2415. A complete application consists of the official application
form and a student essay, plus these supporting documents: student
transcripts, two letters of recommendation, and proof of legal
blindness. The student must also complete an interview with the
president of the applicant's state of residence or the state where
he or she will be attending school. High school seniors must also
include a copy of the results of their ACT, SAT, or other college
entrance exams. Unfortunately, some applications are incomplete,
so the committee is unable to consider them fairly. Applicants must
ensure that all of the required information and supporting
documentation has been received by our scholarship office either
online by midnight EST, March 31, 2014, or by mail postmarked by
March 31, 2014. Students should carefully consider who can do the
best job of writing their letters of reference. Letters should
support the application by being full of facts and observations
that will help the members of the committee see the applicant as
a smart, active student and citizen. Students can write their essays
using word processing software. They should remember to use the
spell checker (or a human proofreader) before uploading, printing,
or copying and pasting it into the online application form. In an
effective essay the applicant will talk about his or her life in
a way that gives the committee insight into him or her. The essay
should cover the ways in which one lives successfully as a blind
person and describe one's personal goals for the future. Information
about positions of leadership is especially helpful. Committee
members give the essay a great deal of attention. The NFB scholarship
committee is comprised of dedicated, successful blind people who
will review all applications and select the top thirty applicants
who will become the scholarship class of 2014. Note that students
submit just one application to the program; the scholarship committee
will choose the thirty winners from all applications received.
These thirty scholarship winners will be notified of their selection
by telephone no later than June 1. Finally, during the annual
convention held July 1 through July 6, 2014, in Orlando, Florida,
the scholarship committee will decide which award will be presented
to each winner. Attending the entire NFB national convention is
one of the requirements to become an NFB scholarship winner. Of
course, attending the convention is also a significant part of the
prize. The National Federation of the Blind's national convention
is the largest gathering of blind people to occur anywhere in the
world each year, with 2,500 or more people registered. Those chosen
as scholarship recipients will have the opportunity to network with
other blind students, to exchange information and ideas, and to
meet and talk with hundreds of blind people who are successfully
functioning in many occupations and professions. Our past winners
often comment that the money was quickly spent, but the contacts
they made and the information they gathered at convention have
continued to make their lives richer than they ever imagined.
Often students apply more than one year before winning a scholarship,
so applicants are encouraged to reapply. The NFB may award three
or more scholarships to men and women who have already received
one Federation scholarship in the past if their scholarship and
leadership merit another award. Individuals receiving a second NFB
national scholarship are recognized as tenBroek Fellows. The secret,
if there is one, to winning an NFB scholarship is to read carefully
the application on our website, and then provide all of the required
information and supporting documentation before the deadline of
March 31, 2014. However, I actually maintain that there is no
secret. The only way to win an NFB scholarship is to apply.
The Kenneth Jernigan Convention Scholarship Fund
by Allen Harris
>From the Editor: Allen Harris is the chairman of the Kenneth Jernigan
Fund Committee and was one of the people who came up with the idea
of honoring our former president and longtime leader by establishing
a program to promote attendance at the national convention, where
so much inspiration and learning occur. Here is Allen's announcement
about the 2014 Kenneth Jernigan Convention Scholarship Fund Program:
Have you always wanted to attend an NFB annual convention but have
not done so because of the lack of funds? The Kenneth Jernigan
Convention Scholarship Fund invites you to make an application for
a scholarship grant. Perhaps this July you too can be in the Rosen
Centre Hotel in Orlando, Florida, enjoying the many pleasures and
learning opportunities at the largest and most important yearly
convention of blind people in the world. The three biggest ticket
items you need to cover when attending an NFB national convention
are the roundtrip transportation, the hotel room for a week, and
the food (which tends to be higher priced than at home). We attempt
to award additional funds to families, but, whether a family or an
individual is granted a scholarship, this fund can only help; it
won't pay all the costs. Last year most of the sixty grants were
in the range of $400 to $500 per individual. We recommend that
you find an NFB member as your personal convention mentor, someone
who has been to many national conventions and is able to share
money-saving tips with you and tips on navigating the extensive
agenda in the big hotel. Your mentor will help you get the most
out of the amazing experience that is convention week. Who is
eligible? Active NFB members, blind or sighted, who have not yet
attended an NFB national convention because of lack of funding are
eligible to apply. How do I apply for funding assistance?1. You
write a letter giving your contact information, and your local NFB
information, your specific amount requested, and then explain why
this is a good investment for the NFB. The points to cover are
listed below. 2. You contact your state president in person or by
phone to request his or her help in obtaining funding. Be sure to
tell the president when to expect your request letter by email,
and mention the deadline. 3. You (or a friend) send your letter
by email to your state president. He or she must add a president's
recommendation and then email both letters directly to the Kenneth
Jernigan Convention Scholarship Fund Committee. Your president must
forward the two letters no later than April 15, 2014. Your letter
to Chairperson Allen Harris must cover these points: * Your full
name, and all your telephone numbers and label them--cell phone,
home, office, other person (if any). * Your mailing address and,
if you have one, your email address. * Your state affiliate and
state president; your chapter and chapter president, if you attend
a chapter. * Your personal convention mentor and provide that
person's phone number. * Your specific request: Explain how much
money you need from this fund to make this trip possible for you.
We suggest you consult with other members to make a rough budget
for yourself. The body of your letter should answer these questions:
How do you currently participate in the Federation? Why do you want
to attend a national convention? What would you receive; what can
you share or give? You can include in your letter to the committee
any special circumstances you hope they will take into consideration.
When will I be notified that I am a winner? If you are chosen to
receive this scholarship, you will receive a letter with convention
details which should answer most of your questions. The committee
makes every effort to notify scholarship winners by May 15, but
you must do several things before that to be prepared to attend if
you are chosen. 1. Make your own hotel reservation. If something
prevents you from attending, you can cancel the reservation. (Yes,
you may arrange for roommates of your own to reduce the cost.) 2.
Register online for the entire convention, including the banquet,
by May 31. 3. Find someone in your chapter or affiliate who has
been to many conventions and can answer your questions as a friend
and advisor. 4. If you do not hear from the committee by May 15,
then you did not win a grant this year. How will I receive my
convention scholarship?At convention you will be given a debit card
or credit card loaded with the amount of your award. The times and
locations to pick up your card will be listed in the letter we sent
you. The committee is not able to provide funds before the convention,
so work with your chapter and state affiliate to assist you by
obtaining an agreement to advance funds if you win a scholarship
and to pay your treasury back after you receive your debit or credit
card. What if I have more questions? For additional
information email the chairman, Allen Harris, at <kjscholarships at nfb.org
[HYPERLINK: mailto:kjscholarships at nfb.org]> or call his Baltimore,
Maryland, office at (410) 659-9314, x2415. Above all, please use
this opportunity to attend your first convention on the national
level and join several thousand active Federationists in the most
important meeting of the blind in the world. We hope to see you in
Orlando.
----------
Recipes
This month's recipes come from members of the NFB of New
Mexico.
Cranberry Salsa
by Don Burns
Don Burns retired in 2006 and now enjoys gardening. He
refers to himself as a part-time chili farmer.
Ingredients: 1 12-ounce bag fresh cranberries 1/2 cup sugar 1/3
cup fresh lime juice 1/4 cup chopped cilantro 3 green onions, thinly
sliced 2 jalapenos, finely chopped
Method: Put berries into boiling water for one minute. Drain and
place in cold water. Chop all remaining ingredients and mix with
drained cranberries. Serve with tortilla chips.
---------- Creole Okra with Shrimp
by Daphne Mitchell
Daphne Mitchell is a fairly recent transport to the Land
of Enchantment but has quickly made herself busy in the
affiliate. She serves as second vice president of New
Mexico, president of the Albuquerque Chapter, and state
coordinator for New Mexico's BELL Program. Recipes like
the following keep her a Louisianan at heart:
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped 2 stalks celery, chopped 1 28-ounce can
diced tomatoes 1 14- to 16-ounce package cooked andouille or smoked
sausage, cut into quarters 1 16-ounce package frozen cut okra,
thawed 2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning, or to taste 2 teaspoons fresh
ground black pepper 2 pounds peeled and deveined medium shrimp 2
cups water 1 cup uncooked long grain rice
Method: Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in
the celery, bell pepper, and onion; cook and stir until the onion
has softened and turned translucent, about five minutes. Stir in
the tomatoes and simmer for ten minutes, then add the okra, sausage,
Cajun seasoning, and pepper. Cover and cook for thirty minutes.
Place the rice and water in another pot, and cook according to
package directions. Add the shrimp to the okra mixture and cook,
stirring, until they are bright pink on the outside and the meat
is no longer transparent in the center, about eight to twelve
minutes. Serve okra mixture over cooked rice.
---------- Sausage Balls by Peggy
Chong
Peggy Chong is a new member of the NFB of New Mexico, but
she is a longtime member of the Federation, an amateur
historian, and a cook.
Ingredients: 12 ounces Jimmy Dean Sausage 1 1/2 cups Bisquick 12
ounces shredded cheddar cheese
Method: Combine all ingredients. Mix with hands. Form into
balls. Bake at 350 on greased cookie sheets for 25 minutes.
---------- Red Chili Sauce by
Veronica Smith
Veronica Smith is the president of the West Mesa Chapter
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the chair of the membership
committee, and a board member of the NFB of New Mexico.
She is married, has a fourteen-year-old daughter, and was
recently hired at Zia Elementary School as an educational
aid in the VI program.
Ingredients: 20 dried chili pods 1/4 cup water 6 garlic cloves
Salt Pinch Mexican oregano 1 pound diced pork (optional)
Method: Remove the stems and seeds of the chili pods. Soak
the pods in water or simmer on stove for about ten minutes.
Place chili and garlic in a blender with 1/4 cup water and
puree until smooth. (Blend six to eight pods of chili and
two cloves of garlic at a time, which will make the puree
smoother and easier to work with.) Add more water as needed
to get a medium consistency. In a saucepan, combine pureed
chili with Mexican oregano and salt to taste. Bring to a
slow boil, and then simmer for twenty minutes. Pork can be
browned and added to sauce while simmering. Yield: 3 cups.
---------- Sopapillas by Veronica
Smith
There is nothing in this world better than biting into a
warm sopapilla while visiting New Mexico. Traditionally
they are served alongside any New Mexican meal, which might
be something like enchiladas, chile rellenos, or a bowl of
posole. Most people love to slather the inside of them with
honey. But be very careful when you pop open the corner:
hot steam will pour out.
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon shortening Warm water, enough to make
a soft dough, but not sticky
Method: Combine all ingredients to form dough. Knead the
dough for a couple of minutes, making sure that all
ingredients have been combined. Divide the dough into ten
to twelve balls. Roll the balls into circles an eighth inch
thick, then cut into medium wedges; you decide how big you
want them to be. Fry in about one inch of oil until browned
on each side and puffed up. Some people use a Fry Baby so
they can immerse the wedges all at once. When done frying,
throw into paper sack with some paper towels to drain.
Serve warm.
----------
Mexican Coffee with Chocolate and Cinnamon
by Nancy Burns
Nancy Burns served as president of the NFB of California.
She and Don moved to Albuquerque in 2006 and enjoy
entertaining. The following is one of her favorite desserts.
Ingredients: 6 cups water 1/2 cup ground dark roast coffee 2
cinnamon sticks 1 cup half and half 1/3 cup chocolate syrup 1/4
cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla Tequila (optional) Sweetened
whipped cream
Method: Place water in coffee maker; place coffee and cinnamon
sticks in coffee filter. Combine half and half, chocolate syrup,
brown sugar, and vanilla in coffee pot. Brew coffee; coffee will
drip into the cream mixture. If desired, serve with one shot tequila
in bottom of cup, pour in coffee, and top with whipped cream.
---------- Monitor Miniatures
News from the Federation Family
NFB Bid for Equality:
Thank you to everyone who supported our Bid for Equality
online auction. We are grateful for our members who helped
with this effort, including those who spread the word about
the auction. And we especially appreciate those who made
a "bid for equality." The package with the highest leading
bid was Texas's two music badges to the South by Southwest
Music Festival, including hotel accommodations, which was
followed by Indiana's pearl necklace and earring set and
New York's weekend getaway. We are excited to report that
we received more than $10,000 in bids to support our
programs. We are already looking forward to next year's
auction.
Elected:
The Blackhawk Chapter of the National Federation of the
Blind of Illinois held elections with the following results:
president, Jay Blanchard; vice president, Patrick Olson;
secretary, Jean Rauschenbach; treasurer, Lois Montgomery;
and board members, Mark Clayburne Jr., Leah Slightom, and
Donna Miles.
Elected:
The National Federation of the Blind of Rhode Island held
its forty-third convention on October 26. The following
individuals were elected: treasurer, Daniel Kendig; and
board members, Angelina Stabile and Donna Elliott.
Congratulations to Angelina, Donna, and Daniel.
Elected: The Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the NFB of Pennsylvania
held its election on Saturday, October 26th. The following people
were elected: president, Denice Brown; first vice president, Stanley
Ingram; second vice president, Joyce McEntyre; treasurer, Eugenio
D'Oliveira; and board members, Stacy Shomo, Sherry Gaskins, Michelle
Owens, and Ruth Chambers.
Elected:
At the business meeting of the National Federation of the
Blind of Washington, held during the 2013 convention in
Everett, the following members of the NFBW board of directors
were elected: treasurer, Cynthia Bennett; board members,
Gary Mackenstadt and Betty Watson; delegate to the 2014
NFB national convention, Michael Freeman; first alternate
delegate, Doug Johnson; second alternate delegate, Kaye
Kipp. Congratulations to those elected, and a hearty "thank
you" to those who have ably served before them.
TEACH Act Collaboration:
The National Association of Blind Students (NABS) is
collaborating with the NFB's advocacy and policy department
in their efforts to advocate for the Technology, Education,
and Accessibility in College and Higher Education (TEACH)
Act. They are collecting stories about blind students'
experiences with higher education, with a goal of collecting
stories from constituents living in every congressional
district in the United States. They need stories from
current and recent students who are, and have been, affected
by the lack of accessibility in the classroom, whether it
was through inaccessible instructional materials or a lack
of, late, or inadequate accessible materials. Instructional
materials could be any form of curricular content from
digital books to web content, to PDF, to online digital
databases. If you have information to share, compose your
paragraph-long story and send it to Cindy Bennett at
<clb5590 at gmail.com [HYPERLINK: mailto:clb5590 at gmail.com]>.
Be sure to include a sentence about how accessibility
guidelines would have prevented or solved your problem.
Please include the school you attend or attended and any
congressional districts that you live in. For example, if
your permanent address is in a different congressional
district from the district in which you go to school, list
both. If you do not know this information, you can use your
ZIP code to look it up at
<http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/>. The second
way that you can help is by reinforcing the appointments
the NFB has with Congress. If someone has an appointment
with your congressperson, Cindy will contact you with the
date of the appointment, and you can call your congressperson's
office and tell your story. This will show your congressperson
that one of his or her constituents is directly affected
by inadequate accessibility and needs the TEACH Act. This
part is very important since members of Congress work for
their constituents. If you have any questions, contact
Cindy Bennett at <clb5590 at gmail.com [HYPERLINK:
mailto:clb5590 at gmail.com]> or Lauren McLarney at
<LMcLarney at nfb.org>. For more information about the TEACH
Act, please read the fact sheet found at
<https://nfb.org/images/nfb/documents/word/2013-teach-fact-sheet.doc>.
Blind Access Training: At Blind Access Training we pride ourselves
on our ability to provide customized, individualized training to
fit the unique needs of our clients. Our trainers work with clients
to establish reasonable, achievable technology goals. Our aim is
to empower our clients to use the devices and software they have
been trained on with proficiency and confidence to achieve greater
independence. We provide training using the telephone, Skype, and
our Talking Communities classroom to allow clients the freedom and
flexibility to choose the venue that best fits their skills and
comfort. We provide the following training options: Windows Operating
Systems (XP and higher), Mac OSX, iDevices (iPod Touch, iPhone,
iPad, and iPad Mini, iOS 4.0 and higher), Outlook, Windows Live
Mail, Microsoft Office Suite (2007 and higher), JAWS (all versions),
Window-Eyes (all versions), System Access, SAMNet, and DocuScan
Plus, Nonvisual Desktop Access, VoiceOver, ZoomText (all versions),
OpenBook (all versions), Kurzweil 1000 (11.0 and higher), various
Braille displays and notetakers (ask for details), and web design
(HTML, CSS, PHP, and JAVA Script). For more information please
contact us by phone at (877) 774-7670 and press 1, or by email at
<info at blindaccesstraining.com [HYPERLINK:
mailto:info at blindaccesstraining.com]>. You can also visit us on
the web at <http://www.blindaccesstraining.com/> to view our complete
listing of services. You can also find helpful blogs, a sample
tutorial, and a resource list there.
Second Annual Fundraiser Bus Trip for the NFB Travel and Tourism
Division:
After the success of our first fundraiser for our division
trip to Utah, we decided to offer another great trip. This
time it is to Country Music USA, Nashville, TN, on October
6 through 10, 2014. This is during Meet the Blind Month,
and, for those worried this might interfere with your state
convention, the trip starts on Monday and ends on Friday,
so you can either fly in from your state convention or fly
to your state convention from this trip. What's included:
four nights lodging, eight meals (four breakfasts and four
dinners), two great shows (the Grand Ole Opry and Nashville
Nightlife Theater), an exclusive dinner party with
entertainment, guided tours of Nashville and Belle Meade
Plantation, admission to the Country Music Hall of Fame,
admission to the Grand Ole Opry Backstage Tour, transportation
in Nashville to and from the airport on a video and restroom
equipped motorcoach, tips for driver and tour guide, and
much more! The trip will cost $568 per person based on
double occupancy. Deposits of $75 are due no later than
May 15, 2014, and final payment is due by July 15. Payment
plans can be arranged once deposits are made. Travel
insurance will be offered. For those wanting hotel rooms
on October 5, prior to the start of the trip, please contact
us so we know how many rooms to hold. These will be at an
additional cost. The itinerary can change, depending on
weather and traffic, but this is what is offered:
Day 1: After you land at the Nashville International Airport, you'll
depart in the comfort of a luxury, video and restroom equipped
motorcoach as you head for lots of excitement in Nashville. On this
evening you'll enjoy dinner and check into your Nashville area
hotel for a four-night stay. (Not sure which hotel yet, but the
tour operator uses hotels such as Holiday Inn or similar, you will
be notified prior to the trip.)
Day 2: After enjoying a continental breakfast, you'll take a guided
tour of Nashville, including a stop at the Parthenon. The Parthenon
is the world's only full-scale reproduction of the famous Greek
Temple. After this you will enjoy a ride on the Delta Flatboat
inside the Opryland Hotel. This evening you will enjoy dinner before
going to see a show at the famous Grand Ole Opry.
Day 3: After a continental breakfast, you'll depart for a guided
tour of beautiful Belle Meade Plantation. Marvel at its antebellum
architecture, and learn about its unique Southern history. Belle
Meade's illustrious past has spanned from its prosperity as a
thoroughbred breeding establishment, to its perilous location at
the Civil War's Battle of Nashville, to its current restoration as
a historically accurate Victorian home. A visit to Belle Meade also
provides an important insight into the struggles of African Americans
before the Civil War. Next, you'll have an opportunity to explore
historic downtown Nashville. During the evening, enjoy dinner and
a show at the fabulous Nashville Nightlife Dinner Theater.
Day 4: Enjoy a continental breakfast, before departing for the
Grand Ole Opry Backstage Tour. There's nothing like a backstage
tour of the Grand Ole Opry House -- it's a must-see for everyone
in Music City. Walk in the footsteps of country music's superstars,
and get an exclusive look at what happens behind the scenes of the
show that made country music famous. On this afternoon, you'll head
to the Country Music Hall of Fame. This is a state-of-the-art
cultural landmark and an architectural crown jewel of the Nashville
skyline. Be amazed by its incredible array of rare costumes,
instruments, and historical mementos. When evening arrives, enjoy
an exclusive group dinner party with entertainment.
Day 5: After enjoying a continental breakfast, you will depart for
home. It is a perfect time to chat with your friends about all the
fun things you've done, the great sights you've seen, and where
your next group trip will take you!
To book, contact Cheryl Echevarria, president of the Travel
and Tourism Division. Echevarria Travel will be hosting
this trip for the NFB Travel and Tourism Division. Call
(631) 456-5394 or email <reservations at echevarriatravel.com
[HYPERLINK: mailto:reservations at echevarriatravel.com]>.
A New Addition to NFB-NEWSLINE[(R)]:
We are pleased to announce the addition of The Verge to
our Breaking News Online publications. The Verge was founded
in 2011 in partnership with Vox Media and covers the
intersection of technology, science, art, and culture. Its
mission is to offer in-depth reporting and long-form feature
stories, breaking news coverage, product information, and
community content in a unified and cohesive manner. The
Verge won five Webby Awards for the year 2012, including
awards for Best Writing (Editorial), Best Podcast for The
Vergecast, Best Visual Design, Best Consumer Electronics
Site, and the Best Mobile News App. This publication is
now available using NFB-NEWSLINE on the telephone, on Web
News On Demand, and on the iPhone app. For telephone users,
The Verge is available as a Breaking News Publication. To
access this you should select option number 5 from the main
menu, labeled For Newspapers in a Different State. Then
select the option for Breaking News Online, which is option
number 1. From there select the option for The Verge. For
iPhone users, first navigate to the Publication Options.
From there select Publication Groups. Finally, you can find
The Verge as a newspaper under the Breaking News Online
group. For those using Web News on Demand, The Verge will
be available either from an alphabetical listing or, if
you prefer, you can access Publications Organized by State.
Then select Breaking News Online. We hope you enjoy this
new addition to the service. Stay tuned for more additions
over the next few weeks. Happy Reading from the NFB-NEWSLINE
Team!
Community Service Group Seeks AmeriCorps Alum:
Fellow Federationists, are you an AmeriCorps alum? Would
you be interested in sharing some of your AmeriCorps
experiences with other service-minded Federationists? Then
the Community Service Group is looking for you! To celebrate
the 20th anniversary of AmeriCorps, the Community Service
Group is looking for AmeriCorps alumni to speak at our
annual seminar at the 2014 national convention in Orlando,
Florida. If you would be interested in speaking and sharing
your experiences, please contact Chris Parsons at
<Christine-parsons at sbcglobal.net [HYPERLINK:
mailto:Christine-parsons at sbcglobal.net]>. We look forward
to hearing from you and hearing your stories!
In Brief
Notices and information in this section may be of interest
to Monitor readers. We are not responsible for the accuracy
of the information; we have edited only for space and
clarity.
International consultant and state agency leader to head up services
for the blind in Oklahoma:
Douglas C. Boone, a consultant and state agency leader
from Kalamazoo, Michigan, with thirty years' experience
in serving people who are blind, will soon lead Visual
Services staff for the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation
Services. "I am excited about coming to Oklahoma, and I
look forward to working with the staff at the Division for
Visual Services and Oklahoma DRS," Boone said. "I believe
that we can most effectively fulfill our mission, which is
really a joint venture between the federal Vocational
Rehabilitation system and the state of Oklahoma, by developing
a partnership between the hardworking professionals within
the agency and the customers who are eligible to receive
vocational rehabilitation and independent living services.
Together we will work as a team that can implement the
strategies needed to enable blind Oklahomans to reach their
full potential," he said. As president of D. Boone
Consultants since 1993, he offered customized consultation
to agencies, educational institutions, businesses, and
organizations serving people who are blind. The company
served more than one thousand staff in nineteen states and
Europe with programs targeting vocational rehabilitation,
independent living, program review and evaluation, strategic
planning, reasonable accommodations, employer outreach,
orientation and mobility, industrial education, and Americans
with Disabilities Act compliance. As state director of
the Pennsylvania Bureau of Blindness and Visual Services,
Boone was responsible for vocational rehabilitation,
employment, independent living, and specialized services
for blind adults and children. He also administered a
program that provided opportunities for people who are
blind to own and operate food service businesses on government
property under provisions of the federal Randolph-Sheppard
Act. His career included employment as director of human
resources staff development for the New Mexico Commission
for the Blind, rehabilitation counselor and rehabilitation
teacher at the Oregon Commission for the Blind, and as an
orientation and mobility instructor and industrial arts
instructor for visually impaired adults and youth. Boone,
who has an orthopedic disability, benefited from rehabilitation
services as a client of Nebraska Rehabilitation Services.
Douglas Boone jokes about inheriting a strong desire to
travel from his forefather Squire Boone Jr., an American
pioneer and the brother of Daniel Boone. The brothers lived
in many states. "The brothers were always looking for a
better place and always trying to improve the places where
they were," he said. Boone earned a bachelor of education
degree from Wayne State College in Wayne, Nebraska. He
participated in three segments of the National Executive
Leadership Institute sponsored by the Rehabilitation Services
Administration. He is a member of the Association for
Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually
Impaired and the National Federation of the Blind. Boone's
wife Christine is an attorney. Their son Edward is serving
in the US Army in Afghanistan. Daughter Kate works as a
groundwater geologist for the state of Nebraska. DRS
annually serves nearly 85,000 Oklahomans with disabilities
through employment, vocational rehabilitation, education,
and independent living programs, and the determination of
medical eligibility for disability benefits. For more
information, phone (800) 845-8476 or visit <www.okdrs.gov
[HYPERLINK: http://www.okdrs.gov]>.
2013 Onkyo Braille Essay Contest Winners:
The Onkyo Braille Literacy Essay Contest is administered
in the US by the NFB on behalf of the North American/Caribbean
Region of the World Blind Union. The essay contest, which
is sponsored by the Onkyo Corporation and the Braille
Mainichi, was created to promote Braille literacy and to
encourage the sharing of social and cultural information
among blind and visually impaired persons. The essays were
required to be written in Braille and to pertain either to
how the individual gains knowledge or independence through
Braille or to an individual concept about world peace from
the viewpoint of persons with disabilities. There were two
groups of competitors: a junior category for persons up to
age twenty-five and a senior category for persons over age
twenty-six. Each winner received a substantial cash prize,
a plaque, and other gifts from the Onkyo Corporation. The
seven winners from the North America/Caribbean Region were as
follows: Ootsuki Prize, Jerry McKee, Alabama; Excellent Work Award,
Senior, Lynn Spittle, South Carolina; Excellent Work Award, Junior,
Anna Avramenko, Kansas; Fine Work Award, Senior, Jeremiah Rogers,
North Carolina, Carolyn Fish, Virginia; Fine Work Award, Junior,
Aspen Poole, New York, Tamer Zaid, Texas.
New Partnership Between Dolly Parton's Imagination Library and
American Printing House for the Blind:
The American Printing House for the Blind (APH) and the
Dollywood Foundation began an exciting partnership in the
summer of 2011 that expands Dolly Parton's Imagination
Library (DPIL) program to provide young blind and visually
impaired children with accessible books in audio and
print/Braille formats. Thanks to the APH/Dolly Parton's
Imagination Library Partnership and the support of Penguin
Group USA, the Accessible Books website was established at
APH. It offers a growing collection of audio files of
Imagination Library books available as free downloads.
Now, selected Imagination Library Books are also available,
free-of-charge, in print/Braille format. By enrolling in
the Partners Print/Braille Book Program, a child may receive
five free print/Braille books each year until reaching
his/her sixth birthday. APH selects the titles from the
current year's DPIL booklist, those most appropriate for
a child with a visual impairment. Print/Braille versions
are mailed directly to the child's family. Is your child
a potential Braille reader under six years of age? If yes,
apply now for the Partners Print/Braille Book Program!
Books are limited and enrollment is on a first come/first
serve basis. Complete and submit our application form here,
<https://usa.imaginationlibrary.com/audio_and_braille_books.php>.
This free service is made possible by generous donors from
across the country. APH welcomes contributions to help
defray initial costs and expand the program so that all
blind and visually impaired children will benefit from this
wonderful service. Donate Now! APH President Tuck Tinsley:
"We're excited! What an honor it is to partner with someone
like Dolly, who is as passionate about literacy as we are.
This relationship between the Imagination Library and the
American Printing House for the Blind means that blind and
visually impaired preschoolers can now be more involved in
the experience of reading with their parents." Ms. Parton:
"Any credit I get is really due to the hard work and fine
reputation of all of those who partner with us to bring
the love of reading to so many kids. I am just thrilled we
can work together to bring this same joy to all children
who may have trouble seeing but have no trouble in believing
that all of their dreams can come true." About Dolly Parton's
Imagination Library
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, a part of the Dollywood
Foundation, partners with local sponsors in 1,300 communities
in three countries to provide a quality, age-appropriate
book each month to preschool children enrolled in the
program. For more information, visit <www.imaginationlibrary.com
[HYPERLINK: http://www.imaginationlibrary.com]> or the
official Facebook page. About the American Printing House
for the Blind
American Printing House for the Blind (APH), founded in
1858, is the world's largest nonprofit organization creating
educational, workplace, and independent living products
for people who are blind and visually impaired. In addition,
the Louis database currently contains approximately 398,796
titles in accessible formats <www.aph.org [HYPERLINK:
http://www.aph.org]>.
GrabPak Offers Emergency Preparedness Kit for Blind:
When disaster strikes, community emergency services and
government agencies may not be able to respond promptly to
your needs. Their buildings, equipment, personnel,
communications, and mobility may be severely hampered by
the event. At a minimum they will be overwhelmed. The US
Department of Homeland Security and state emergency management
agencies strongly recommend all Americans prepare to be on
their own for a minimum of three days after a disaster.
One of the most important elements of preparedness is the
seventy-two-hour emergency kit for your home or office.
The GrabPak custom-built backpack kit for the blind and
vision-impaired includes the necessary supplies to comfort
and assist those with limited or no vision during an
evacuation or times of emergency. Our blind and vision-impaired
backpack comes equipped with a Braille identification tag
and all items in the backpack are labeled in Braille and
large print. Contents include: List of contents in Braille,
extended-shelf-life high-calorie food bars, extended-shelf-life
water pouches, crank-powered mobile phone charger with USB
connection cord, crank-powered LED Flashlight, first aid
kit, LED illuminated pocket magnifier, compact folding
white cane, rescue whistle, Mylar solar blanket, hooded
rain poncho, twelve-hour light stick, AM/FM radio with
batteries, and hygiene kit. Note: Supplies for guide dogs,
including extended-shelf-life dog food and water, collapsible
bowl, and waste disposal bags, are also available. For
more information, please visit us at <www.grabpak.com
[HYPERLINK: http://www.grabpak.com]> or call David Fisher
at (800) 620-4199.
Developers of Tactile Graphics Guidelines and Standards Honored
with BANA's Braille Excellence Award:
The international committee that developed the landmark
publication Guidelines and Standards for Tactile Graphics,
2010 was recently honored with the Braille Excellence Award
from the Braille Authority of North America (BANA). CBA-BANA
Joint Tactile Graphics Committee, which was co-sponsored
by the Canadian Braille Authority (CBA) and BANA, received
the award on December 5 in Providence, Rhode Island, in a
showcase session at the 2013 Getting in Touch with Literacy
Conference. The volunteer members of this collaborative
CBA-BANA ad hoc committee donated their time and talents
for nearly a decade, meeting by phone almost weekly year
round. Together, they defined, refined, and established in
writing a comprehensive, user-friendly set of research-based
guidelines and standards for the design and production of
tactile graphics for Braille users. The members of the
CBA-BANA Joint Committee on Tactile Graphics honored with
BANA's Braille Excellence Award are: Lucia Hasty, Colorado,
USA; John McConnell, New Brunswick, Canada; Janet Milbury,
Nova Scotia, Canada; Irene Miller, Alberta, Canada; Allison
O'Day, Minnesota, USA; Aquinas Pather, Ontario, Canada;
and Diane Spence, Texas, USA. The publication of Guidelines
and Standards for Tactile Graphics, 2010, which includes
a manual and an accompanying supplement that contains
hardcopy examples, was approved by BANA in the fall of
2010. The manual is available free of charge on the BANA
website at <http://www.brailleauthority.org/tg/index.html>.
Hardcopy editions of the manual and the supplement can be
purchased from the American Printing House for the Blind
<www.aph.org>. The BANA Braille Excellence Award was
established in 2009 to commemorate the bicentenary of Louis
Braille's birth by recognizing individuals and groups who
have made significant contributions to Braille. It was
presented to Dr. Abraham Nemeth in 2009 and to Mr. Joseph
Sullivan in 2011. The extraordinary commitment and
contribution of the CBA-BANA Joint Tactile Graphics Committee
will have an immeasurable impact for Braille readers. Their
work and dedication are truly representative of the
accomplishments that BANA's Braille Excellence Award was
designed to recognize. For additional resource information,
visit <www.brailleauthority.org [HYPERLINK:
http://www.brailleauthority.org]>.
New Crossword App for iPhone and iPad:
Four Down is a crossword app for iPhone and iPad that uses
VoiceOver to make it fully accessible to blind and visually
impaired users. With VoiceOver enabled you can easily
navigate around the crossword grid and the clues. As you
do so, Four Down reads the clues aloud, telling you the
clue itself, how many letters the answer has, and describing
any letters in the answer that are already known. For
example, it may say "Eight down. Male duck. 5 letters. D,
three blanks, E." When you're ready to answer a clue, you
simply double-tap and use the keyboard to enter the answer.
In addition to being able to enter the answers into the
crossword grid, you can also use VoiceOver to find out how
you're getting on by checking individual letters, a whole
answer, or the entire puzzle. Four Down will announce
whether or not any mistakes were found and, if there were,
it will describe their locations on the grid so that you
can easily find and correct them. If you get stuck, Four
Down can lend a helping hand by filling in an individual
letter or a whole answer. If you get really desperate, you
can even fill in the entire puzzle. Four Down is a universal
app, meaning the same app works on both iPhone and iPad
and costs $0.99 in the App Store
<https://itunes.apple.com/app/id655212651?mt=8>. If you
try Four Down, the developers would love to hear from you.
You can email them at <fourdown at deftmethods.com [HYPERLINK:
mailto:fourdown at deftmethods.com]> or find them on Twitter
<@deftmethods>.
New Electronic Magazine to Connect Pen Pals:
I am starting an electronic magazine for people who would
like to become or find new pen pals. If you would like to
receive it regularly or would like to submit a pen pal ad
for yourself or someone else, feel free to do so at:
<adrijana.prokopenko at gmail.com [HYPERLINK:
mailto:adrijana.prokopenko at gmail.com]>. Suggestions for
what to include in your ad are your name, age, location,
and hobbies or interests.
Monitor Mart
The notices in this section have been edited for clarity,
but we can pass along only the information we were given.
We are not responsible for the accuracy of the statements
made or the quality of the products for sale.
For Sale: I have a six-year-old PAC Mate BX400, which was upgraded
to a PAC Mate Omni. It is in excellent condition and comes with a
forty-cell Braille display, flash memory card, network card, cables,
related documentation, and a carrying case. The price is $1,500
plus shipping costs. Method of payment: Check or money transfer (I
would prefer the latter). Please contact Maryse Glaude-Beaulieu at
<maryse.glaudebeaulieu at gmail.com [HYPERLINK:
mailto:maryse.glaudebeaulieu at gmail.com]>.
For Sale:
I have a Romeo Attaché Pro Braille embosser for sale and
am asking $1,000 or best offer. Enabling Technologies
replaced the main board six months ago. It is compatible
with Windows XP and with Windows 7. Please contact Debra
Baker at <dbaker152 at woh.rr.com [HYPERLINK:
mailto:dbaker152 at woh.rr.com]>.
---------- NFB Pledge
I pledge to participate actively in the efforts of the
National Federation of the Blind to achieve equality,
opportunity, and security for the blind; to support the
policies and programs of the Federation; and to abide by
its constitution.
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