Orlando, Florida (July 8, 2024): The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) has presented forty thousand dollars in cash awards to individuals and organizations that are a positive force in the lives of blind people and whose work advances the goal of helping transform their dreams into reality. At the National Federation of the Blind annual convention, the seventeenth annual Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards honored four individuals and organizations who are helping blind people live the lives they want.

Awards of five thousand dollars each went to Deborah Kendrick, a writer whose body of work advances understanding of blindness and disability and provides useful information to the blind community, and Donna Posont, who conducts an innovative program at the Environmental Interpretive Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn that helps blind people of all ages learn about birding and explore nature. Awards of fifteen thousand dollars each were presented to Living Blindfully, a podcast that provides information to help blind people live their best lives, and Handid Braille services, which provides Braille documents in multiple languages, including many (such as Arabic and Japanese) that do not use the Latin alphabet.

Dr. Jacob W. Bolotin (1888-1924) was the world’s first physician who was blind from birth. He achieved that goal despite the tremendous challenges faced by blind people in his time. Not only did he realize his own dream, but he also went on to support and inspire many others. 

“Dr. Jacob Bolotin was a pioneer who overcame low expectations and discrimination to become a renowned member of the medical profession without the benefit of the support services and civil rights protections available to blind people today,” said Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind. “The National Federation of the Blind is proud to honor the memory and spirit of Dr. Bolotin by recognizing and financially supporting those individuals and organizations who are also breaking through the barriers created by low expectations and doing exceptional work to help achieve the shared dream of Dr. Bolotin and the National Federation of the Blind—a society in which the blind, like all other Americans, can pursue their goals and live the lives they want.”

The Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards Program is funded in part through the generosity of Dr. Bolotin’s nephew and niece-in-law, Alfred and Rosalind Perlman, who established a trust in their names to endow the awards. Income from the Alfred and Rosalind Perlman Trust is distributed to the National Federation of the Blind and the Santa Barbara Foundation to help administer the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards Program. For more information about the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards Program—including more about this year’s winners, as well as eligibility criteria and application procedures—please visit www.nfb.org/bolotin.