2022 Scholarship Awards

PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: Okay, we've now come to a part of the convention which I know has continued to be interesting while we were in the virtual convention, but we really missed having it live and in person, and that's our scholarship program! [cheering and applause]

By the way, please give a quick shout out to our 2020 and 2021 scholarship award recipients who are here. Where are you? [a few whoops and laughter]

They're all in the corner, or they're in the elevator! Maybe that's what it is. [laughter]

They are here! I got to meet many of them in person for the first time at a reception last evening. So make sure you congratulate them as well.

This is a dynamic committee. It takes a lot of work, and the person that coordinates it is from New York. She's an educator as well. And I can't say enough about the tremendous effort she makes to make this program fly. Even as we've thrown new changes at her this year, she worked through it all during the pandemic. She's a great chair. Here is Cayte Mendez! [applause]

CAYTE MENDEZ: Okay! Good morning, President Riccobono and members of the board. There are so many wonderful parts of convention every year, but this is one of my favorites. This is a program of which I was a beneficiary in 2001. It's a program that the board generously agrees to maintain and continue every year. The board voted to make some changes to the program that I think will make the program more about mentorship, more about making and finding a home in the Federation, finding a place, and celebrating the folks that are honored by our named scholarships rather than worrying about what digits are before the comma. [laughter]

So this year, the scholarship class is blazing trails with the new iteration of this program, and I hope that they're as excited as I am to be a part of this work.

This program honors academic aptitude, scholastic excellence, leadership, community service, creativity, mentorship, and all of the things that we value here in the Federation. So it is always my privilege every year to introduce these thirty finalists to all of you.

I'll announce the finalists by their first name, last name, their home state, and for some of these folks they've also asked that I identify a home country, and I'll do that as well. As usual, I'll tell you their state where they're going to school and their vocational goal. We have three folks in the class this year who are tenBroeks. Dr. tenBroek was a founder and renowned member of our organization, and we honor his memory by awarding folks who are receiving their second scholarship with the tenBroek fellowships.

The first one of our finalists this year is Shawn Abraham, Maryland, Maryland, United States: diplomat.

SHAWN: Hello, everyone. It has always been my goal to fight the limiting attitudes about disability in society, and I've done this through my intense passion for fashion, serving as a resident assistant on my campus, and competing in college wrestling at the national level. Mentoring youth and helping others has always been extremely important to me, both in the blind community and beyond. I have a love for learning languages, a deep belief in cultural inclusion, and a strong pride in my own South Asian identity. This is why I'm focusing my education on international relations: to continue to fight the stereotypes we all face across the globe and to build a better future for everyone. So, thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Nancy Aguilera, Missouri, Missouri: researcher and professor of political science.

NANCY: Good morning, everybody. I would say that one of my defining characteristics is determination. Determination has led me to raise two wonderful people in my life, earn my bachelor's degree in political science, and another bachelor's in psychology, and do the everyday, mundane things that people think blind people can't do. You know, even things that are challenging, like traveling alone or riding trains. You know, crazy stuff like that, right? Why do you do it? And it's like, determination. I definitely believe that without this characteristic, I would totally be a different person. I've enjoyed every minute of being so determined. Thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Tasnim Alshuli is one of our tenBroek Fellows this year, Arizona, Arizona: professor and consultant.

TASNIM: Hello, everyone. It's an honor to be a scholarship finalist, and I'm so grateful for this opportunity again for a second time. I am a doctoral student at the University of Arizona focusing on math education, visual impairments, and cognitive science as well as STEM in general. My passion is to pave ways for opportunities centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion for the blind and other intersectionalities. Also, I enjoy very much planning, organizing, and being involved. Hence I'm involved in various advisory boards, committees, and so on in the Federation as well as in my community. Specifically, I'm the chair of the NFB Muslims, an active member in Arizona, and a scholarship recipient nationally in 2018 and the state scholarship in Arizona in 2017. Thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Katelyn Beresic, West Virginia, West Virginia: social worker for LGBTQ youth and disabled individuals.

KATELYN: Thank you, everybody. I'm going to go ahead and start off by saying that my pronouns are she/they, and I identify as nonbinary and bisexual. I'm also on the asexual spectrum. Yes, there are LGBTQ people in West Virginia. Very shocking! [some laughter] I will be an upcoming freshman this year at West Virginia University. I was newly diagnosed with RP about four years ago, and since then I have worked in combination with my TVI, Megan Hoover, who lives in West Virginia and works in West Virginia and Maryland to learn more about myself, and she's the main reason why I am pursuing social work, as well as advocacy, for a range of individuals with a range of disabilities, including but not limited to visual impairments, hearing impairments, and other mobility-related disabilities. One thing that I do hope to do is learn sign language in the future, and I really, really want to work in combination with LGBTQ youth, as I do know that is a large portion that kind of gets overlooked a lot, especially coming from West Virginia, where it's just not talked about at all.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Jovan Campbell, New York, New York: community education.
 
JOVAN: Good morning, everyone. How is everyone doing? In 2007, I went from totally sighted to totally blind, and I was totally hopeless. In 2011, I got sepsis and ended up as a partial wheelchair user. I say all of this to say, I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I was going to go back to school. I didn't know how I was going to do it. I just had this promise to myself. In 2021, I figured it out—how to go back to school. My arduous journey with my health led me to my beloved major of public health, of which I want to educate my community how to not just live, but live a life of quality—not just quantity, but quality. So I just thank you for the opportunity to meet all of you guys, meet my class of scholarship winners, and I'm honored and encouraged to just keep going. I want not just to keep my promise to finish this degree but go on and get another degree and another degree. Thank you so much, guys.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Justin Champagne, Louisiana, Louisiana, professor of mathematics.

JUSTIN: Laissez les bon temps rouler, New Orleans! I am so glad to welcome you to my home state of Louisiana, and I am honored to have been selected as a finalist. I'm sure that Pam Allen had many protests—no, I'm kidding, I love you, Pam. I'm pursuing my PhD in mathematics from LSU. My greatest passion is to make math accessible to everyone. So, you know, math is known to be inaccessible to blind people, but the truth is, it's inaccessible to everyone. That's a problem that I want to help solve for everybody.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Jenn Doran, Virginia, Oregon: PhD to help vulnerable communities survive climate change.

JENN: Hi, everyone. My academic research actually involves sediment flux in the boundary layer. This is a fancy way to say I play with ocean muds. I picked my PhD advisor because he has open access books with everything we would ever need to know about climate change, but it's not accessible. In fact, climate change data is not accessible. In 2020 I found myself in a very vulnerable position as Beachy Creek fire was not too far from me, Holiday Fire was south of me, there was a fire on the other side of Corvallis, and Harrisburg just set on fire, and my husband was not home. So I called my local ADA office, my local mayor and councilmen and women—all of that to see what happens if I'm an independent person living by myself, not in a group home or assisted living home, and I need to evacuate and there's nobody. Let's just say what I found there left a lot to be desired. So my goal is to work with my PhD advisor to make this data accessible so that we can be empowered to advocate for policies to mitigate the dangers of climate change that we face so that no one in our community will perish because of climate change.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Abbie Duffy, New Hampshire, New Hampshire: psychology and criminal justice.

ABIGAIL: Hello, fellow Federationists. I'm eighteen years old, this is actually my eleventh national convention ever, and my first was when I was seven years old. I'm an alpine ski racer when I'm not doing school, and I did skiing in high school when I was on the high school ski team. I will be skiing collegiately, and I'm also the current women's blind national champion in three different para-alpine disciplines, so that's a fun fact. I have been a very proud Federationist for much of my life, and I'm very glad to have this opportunity to be here today. I've met a lot of blind leaders throughout my time as a Federationist, and I just want to thank everyone that I've met along the way for helping me get to where I am now.

CAYTE MENDEZ: This class has representatives from several countries outside of the US. The first of these is coming up next, Teresa Fabre, currently residing in Illinois, but she's originally from Mexico and going to school in Illinois in vision rehab.

TERESA: Hello, my Federation family. When I graduated from college in culinary arts in 2013, I was definitely not planning to go back to school. Then, in 2016, I moved to Chicago, and I had to find a new family there, so that was a lot of fun. That helped me be aware of the importance of having a community. And then, three years later, I lost my vision, and I decided that I wanted to go back to school because I noticed there were a lot of things that needed to be done regarding our blind and visually impaired community but also the disability community in general. One of my personal goals is to generate awareness within the general public about us so we can have a conversation with them and sit with them at the table. I want them to know us, know that we are people, that we have dreams, that we have goals, that we are not lesser people, and that we deserve equality and the same opportunities as they do. So that's my passion. Thank you all.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Ethan Fung, California, California: operations management and environmental sustainability.

ETHAN: Hi, everyone. I'm sure that many of you feel that many of the world's largest businesses and corporations are environmentally draining, self-serving, and cash-hungry cows. But rather than beating a dead cow, I would like to draw your attention to the progress we have made over the last few decades. Among our most innovative companies, we have those who are putting a new emphasis on environmentally sustainable practices, which is fostering not only economic but social benefits as well. This is why I would like to dedicate my career to helping these forward-thinking companies achieve their goal of making this world more sustainable. And I implore you to help where you can and to join together and take responsibility for our future together. Thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Izzi Guzman, Florida, Florida: music educator, composer, entrepreneur.

IZZI: Hi, everyone. My name is Izzi and my pronouns are she/her. I'm diagnosed with albinism, and I play the trombone and trumpet. I compose and arrange jazz and popular music, but most importantly, I want to be a music educator for elementary and middle school students, ensuring that all students from different cultures, backgrounds, and abilities have access to music education and that music education is accessible for everybody with jazz and popular music centered in the curriculum. When you think about it, what's the kind of music that you grew up with and you love: songs that you listen to on the radio. Think about it. It's jazz and popular music. It's songs from R and B, funk, pop. Those are the songs that I want to incorporate for students to learn music and fall in love with music education. Thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Michael Hardin, Indiana, Indiana: social work.

MICHAEL: Hello, everyone. It is truly an honor to be here. I would like to start by saying I'm an active member in the NFB Circle City Chapter in Indianapolis. I'm a proud father and role model to three children. Prior to blindness, I worked seven years as a diesel technician. Right now, I'm transitioning into a new career where I plan to work as a generalist social worker upon graduation, with the ultimate goal of starting my own practice. I would like to leave you guys with a famous quote from Helen Keller that says: "The only thing worse than being blind is being sighted with no vision."
Thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Renae Hemmings, New Jersey but is originally from Jamaica, going to school in New Jersey: psychologist and therapist.

RENAE: Hello, everyone. I will be majoring in psychology at Kean University in the fall. I hope to become a psychologist to help people achieve mental stability and be able to function daily and able to heal from past traumas.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Natasha Ishaq, New Jersey, New Jersey: and she has the longest vocational goal—paleoanthropological studies or law. [laughter]

NATASHA: Hi, everybody. If I've learned anything over the last several years, it's that blindness does not have to translate to living a life of low ambitions and limitations. I've been conducting original research in paleoanthropology since the spring of my sophomore year, and in a few short weeks I will be taking part in my first excavation. Come fall, I will be interning with the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice since I do have an interest in law, and I'm looking to gain more experience in the legal field to determine if it's a direction I want to go in. I'm also involved in multiple organizations both on and off campus, and I am very fortunate to be able to hold leadership positions in almost all of them, including a disability advocacy and accessibility advocacy organization. Thank you very much for this opportunity. I am eternally grateful.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Hunter Kuester, Wisconsin, Wisconsin: business student, brewery and kitchen owner.

HUNTER: Good afternoon, my Federation family. I am studying hospitality management and getting a double major in real estate. I'm also picking up a minor in business. I hold a number of titles from president of the Brewing Craft Sciences Association on my campus to being president of the Wisconsin Association of Blind Students, a board member of NFB of Wisconsin and newly elected board member of the National Association of Blind Students. But the title I hold dearest to my heart is five years ago, I became a member of this dynamic organization and I only look to see how far my connections will let me go in my career. Thank you again.

CAYTE MENDEZ: We have quite a few members of this class who are parents. We've heard from some of them. Another is this next finalist. Maura Kutnyak, New York, New York: attorney.

MAURA: Hello. These are the loves of my life and the cornerstones of my success: my three bright and beautiful children, my beloved husband, and my friends. Cultivating strong mind-body connections through aerial dance and acrobatics, my long and winding education journey which will end at the University of Buffalo School of Law, by living a dream as a teaching fellow with my constitutional law professor. Currently I am serving as president of the New York Parents of Blind Children, as secretary of my chapter, as NEWSLINE outreach coordinator in New York, among other things. For all of this I am tremendously grateful. Thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Robert Lamm, Colorado, Colorado: environmental engineer.

ROBERT: Hello, everybody. Prior to my vision loss, I was one of the youngest certified master gardeners in Colorado. After my vision loss, that led me to deciding to become an environmental engineer, to scale up desalination processes, to try to help fix the water crisis in the West. Secondarily, I want to work on pollution with microplastics. Besides giving back to the world, I look forward to giving back to the blind as well, so thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Katie Lester. Before I announce our next winner, I do want to say our Scholarship class represents twenty-six different states—they range from all over the country—big states, small states, very populous states to small states that would rattle if you shook them. But the person who came from the farthest state for this scholarship class is Katie Lester, student, Alaska, Alaska: social worker, therapist.

KATIE: Hi everyone. Thanks. I recently lost my vision in 2018 in my early thirties. I have had various personal experiences that led me to my degree that I'm currently working on, my bachelors and masters to be able to counsel and work with others who have lost their vision or have another disability or who are struggling to live the lives that they want.

So helping them to do that and going through more education and bringing more access into the education arena on the college level are my top goals. Personally, I am just amazed at how often I have to remind myself that, with everyone's help, I'm never alone. So I remind you that there's always someone willing to help you and support you. I am a board member of the Alaska division of the NFB, as well as a volunteer at the Alaska Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Thank you very much.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Casey Martin, North Dakota, North Dakota: speech language therapist.

CASEY: Hello. My current master's research topic is regarding the issue of people with disabilities and health care practitioners in the speech language profession. I'm also open and looking to an externship somewhere—hopefully in a school for the blind—this coming spring, as well as a clinical fellowship starting next summer. Through a number of different social science courses, one of my main philosophies is that personal autonomy and independence or freedom comes from choice, and in order to exhibit choice, we need to work on enhancing and empowering communication.

CAYTE MENDEZ: This next finalist is another one of our tenBroek Fellows. I know it's going to be really hard for some of you in here, but I'm going to ask you again to hold your applause. Daniel Martinez, Texas, Texas. They're trying valiantly, but they're struggling. I can hear them there. Daniel: educator of blind students.

DANIEL: I was entered into the Disability Hall of Fame from the National Disability Mentoring Coalition in 2019, because of my efforts in mentoring. I value peer mentoring. In this convention, I'm mentoring six students from the Texas Mentoring Program—the best program in the state and in the nation, and in the NFB. It is led by Norma Crosby and, well, I'm looking for mentors. I'm a student and I can help you, and I'm connecting with all of you. But I'm a new parent, so I'm looking for parents to talk to.
Thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Sarah Menefee, Texas, Oklahoma: registered dietitian.

SARAH: Hi, everyone. I will be attending the University of Tulsa next year, majoring in biology. I was recruited to row on their Division I team, and I'm very excited about that because it was one of my more important goals in life. As a rower, I have achieved two national championships. I enjoy hobbies such as ceramics, hiking, biking, swimming—just generally being outdoors, and I'm so excited to be here this week. Thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Selene Monjaraz, Tennessee, Connecticut: mental health and therapist.

SELENE: I was the only student at my school to pass all my state dual credit exams. They're useless now because I'm studying out of state, so those credits don't matter. [laughter]

But less than 2 percent of people pass exams like the world history one, and I was one of that 2 percent in my state that did. So I learned that I'm smarter and more capable than I thought I was before.

I have the honor of serving as vice president of our chapter of Special Olympics, serve in Key Club, Honor Society, and other organizations like that. And that taught me that I am capable of leading, and I shouldn't be afraid of that.

I don't really have a goal right now. I'm in this weird place where I'm about to start college in the fall. So I've finished high school, about to start college. I just hope that whatever I do, I can serve the world around me, and that includes everyone in this room. You are part of the world, and I hope to serve as best I can.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Julia Murray, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania: occupational therapist.

JULIA: Good afternoon, Federation. Growing up, I've had many supports, such as my teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing who has taught me how to advocate with the world around me. I also had the teacher of the visually impaired and an orientation and mobility teacher that have taught me how to navigate the world around me, and also the director of the adapted sports program for the blind and visually impaired has given me so many different opportunities to play so many different sports such as skiing, paddleboarding, and blind ice hockey. Because of these people, I want to be able to do the same things they did for me for other people. The reason I chose occupational therapy specifically is because I like to call it daily driven because their ultimate goal is to work with people with daily skills that they need every single day.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Finn Paynich, Washington, Washington: musical theater.

FINN: Hi. As stated, my name is Finn, and my pronouns are they/them. That's something that sometimes sets me apart from others. If it isn't my transness, then it's my blindness or my queer sexuality or my neuro divergence. I've been working on feeling pride in all my intersectional identities, and safe spaces such as the theater community, Pride events, and this convention are all teaching me to really take up space as a queer disabled person. In the presence of such great community, I often feel that I'm able to truly be myself. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to stand up here and take up that space and for the opportunity to attend the art school of my dreams. It will give me the skills I need to be a professional theater artist. I will use that platform as an artist to advocate for fellow disabled and LGBTQ people, as well as continue to be politically active.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Emily Schlenker, Kansas, Kansas: pharmacy.

EMILY: Hello, everyone. We had such an amazing and dynamic NABS session last night, and one of the things that was talked about a lot was building bridges. I want to share something with all of you that happened to me in the last two years that really brought this home for me. In 2020 I received a very clear denial of my application to pharmacy school based specifically on my blindness. I was pretty much told in this letter that there were three things I could not do. I could not give vaccines, I could not look at prescriptions, and I could not find errors in those prescriptions. So I called the National Federation of the Blind, and as we talked about last night, we're always building bridges in one way or another. But what I would like to say to go along with that is that every bridge needs shoring up, and every person building bridges sometimes needs shoring up. I was so privileged and honored to have a meeting that was basically between myself and the pharmacy school and Scott LaBarre and Tom Page, and they shored me up, and I had a very rare opportunity to advocate for myself to the same people who had denied my entrance into the pharmacy program. I can also say now that, not only am I a proud student of the Kansas University School of Pharmacy, but I have in fact passed three of those milestones they said I could not pass. I have given an injection. I have drawn and dosed the vaccine. I have also checked prescriptions, and I have also found errors and corrected them. Thank you very much. [cheering and applause]

CAYTE MENDEZ: Carla Scroggins, is also a tenBroek Fellow, California, California: global security analyst and diplomatic strategist.

CARLA: Good morning, everybody. Board, thank you for this opportunity. I cannot tell you what it means to me to once again be believed in by my Federation family and my tribe. I am just starting my master's program at Johns Hopkins University for a master's in global security, strategic studies. Some of the values that we fight for so much in this organization come from our liberal values of equality and equity. That is based in security, and I want to find ways to understand that and make that security impactful and real on a global scale, not just for a specific country or region. Thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Bhavya Shah, originally from India, California: data science.

BHAVYA: Hello, I'm a regular geek. I'm majoring in mathematics and computational science at college, a bunch of cool buzzwords. When I'm not obsessing about code, I participate in debate—very cool. I won the world championship, so people don't like to get into arguments with me, except my mother, and she always wins. [laughter]

I care about giving back. I'm a longtime contributor to the NVDA screen reader project, and I also serve on my university's disability task force. I also care about learning and growing and living my best life, which is why I moved halfway across the world from the corners of Mumbai to pursue my studies at my dream school, Stanford University. This is why I'm spending this summer acquiring blindness skills and confidence at the Louisiana Center for the Blind. Thank you. [cheering]

CAYTE MENDEZ: Kateyln Siple, Maryland, Pennsylvania: communication and leadership in not-for-profits or ministries.

KATELYN: One of my goals this year is to grow in confidence and become a better version of me. This includes making decisions and being more decisive in going after what I want. My goal is to travel and to do what I love. Hello, fellow Federationists, it's great to be with you. I'm twenty-four years old, a senior in communications, at Lancaster Bible College in Pennsylvania, and a recent graduate of the Louisiana Center for the Blind. My goal is to help people in whatever I do whether in nonprofit or ministry work. I'm starting up a platform on social media to be a positive role model, to encourage, and inspire, and thank you very much for this opportunity.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Stephanie Valdes, Massachusetts, Massachusetts: interpreter and translating.

STEPHANIE: Good afternoon, Federation family. I want to start off by saying that I was actually one of those sighted people at one point who thought that blind people couldn't do much. When I lost my vision after graduating high school, I thought that my world had collapsed, and that was pretty much it for my life. I soon realized that was not it, and that blindness was not the characteristic that defined me. So, I am now majoring in French, and am bilingual in English and Spanish. I'm determined to break the barriers that are put in place by languages in society to give the opportunity for people to have a better quality of life and equality. At the same time, I strive to do that same thing for the blindness community with my everyday actions and changing people's perception of blind people one person at a time just by doing normal things like being a mother, being a wife, and attempting to launch my own business of self-care products.

I hope to be an example, an inspiration to not only the current generation but to the next generations, not by my achievements but by my determination to simply live the life I want how I want to live it. Thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: Colin Wong, Washington, Washington: adult education and blindness education researcher.

COLIN: Thank you so much. I told myself I wasn't going to go back to school, but life has a way of doing this to me. In the fall I'll be pursuing a PhD in teaching and leadership with a concentration in adult education and professional development. My greatest accomplishment so far has always been my National Orientation and Mobility Certification, because it has provided me with an opportunity to witness how a quality education can change the impact and trajectory of a student's life. It also has also taught me that there are many students who do not get the opportunity to get the quality education that they deserve, and that there are gaps in education that are not discussed outside of this room, including the gap of quality educators needed in rehabilitation education and nontraditional students who are adults with and without disabilities.

So my goal is to become a university professor and develop research to improve the educational system in both of these concentrations. Thank you.

CAYTE MENDEZ: All right, Mr. President, members of the board, [applause] I present to you the Class of 2022. [cheering and applause]

MARK RICCOBONO: Congratulations to our finalists, and thank you to Cayte and the committee for an excellent selection of a class and for the work that's being done to mentor these young folks throughout the convention. Let's give them another round of applause. [applause]

I wonder how the board feels about continuing the program next year.

It's been moved and seconded by many to continue the scholarship program next year. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. [many board members saying aye]

Opposed? [silence]

All right, it shall be done.