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Braille Monitor

Vol. 67, No. 7               July 2024

Gary Wunder, Editor

Distributed by email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB flash drive, by the
National Federation of the Blind

Mark Riccobono, President

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THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND KNOWS THAT BLINDNESS IS NOT THE CHARACTERISTIC THAT DEFINES YOU OR YOUR FUTURE. EVERY DAY WE RAISE THE EXPECTATIONS OF BLIND PEOPLE, BECAUSE LOW EXPECTATIONS CREATE OBSTACLES BETWEEN BLIND PEOPLE AND OUR DREAMS. YOU CAN LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT; BLINDNESS IS NOT WHAT HOLDS YOU BACK. THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR OURSELVES.

ISSN 0006-8829

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Vol. 67, No. 7                      July 2024

Illustration: Stevie Wonder Visits the Jernigan Institute and Engages in Some Sports Fun

Reflections on How an Investment in Training Has Shaped My Last Twenty-Five Years
by Mark Riccobono

Safeguarding the Legacy, Investing in Inheritance
by Jonathan Mosen

Building the Movement: Achieving Our Dreams through Strategic Investments
by Denise Avant, Trisha Kulkarni, Lisamaria Martinez, Sanho Steele-Louchart, and Denise Brown

Charcoal and Challenges
by Marc Maurer

Public Access Barriers for Guide Dog Teams: Survey Report
by The Seeing Eye

Celebrating Fatherhood: An Interview with Michael Hardin
by LaShawna Fant

Step Up to the Stove: Mixing Together Independence, Confidence, and Safety
by Elizabeth Rouse

We Need Your Help

The Strange English Language
Author Unknown

Taking Seniors Where They Are and Providing the Resources They Need
by Sandy Halverson

A Blind Chef's Culinary Journey
by Cameron Loehr

Monitor Miniatures

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Stevie Wonder and Mark Riccobono read the Braille message wall, it reads “Welcome Stevie.” Matt Ater stands in the background.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Stevie Wonder, his staff, and Mark Riccobono explore the Dan Parker “Quest for the Salt” motorcycle exhibit.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Kennedy Zimnik, a member of the NFB IBTC staff, introduces Stevie Wonder to the Tactonom Reader, which allows you to interact with physical graphics through touch and audio. Mark Riccobono listens in the background.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Stevie Wonder and Mark Riccobono play PowerShowDown.

Stevie Wonder Visits the Jernigan Institute and Engages in Some Sports Fun

Stevie Wonder was in Baltimore to receive an honorary doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University. He visited NFB while here so we could share with him our recent work. During Stevie’s tour with President Riccobono, the President showed him our Braille wall, where we wrote “Welcome Stevie” in Braille.

When we undertook the remodeling of the fourth floor Barney Street wing in 2019, it was always our intention to add the PowerShowDown to the space. However, you remember what happened in March of 2020, and pursuing it was not a priority because no one was staying here. Next we had trouble connecting with a manufacturer to build us a table. The game is not popular in the United States, so we had to find someone out of the country. While on the tour, Stevie found the table which we had just set up earlier that day, so he was one of the first to play on it with President Riccobono.

We were delighted to have this tremendous musical legend visit with us and believe he came away with a real appreciation of what we do for him and other blind people.

 

Reflections on How an Investment in Training Has Shaped My Last Twenty-Five Years

by Mark Riccobono

From the Editor: Our training centers make a difference—a big difference, but not many folks reflect on that difference a quarter of a century later, and still fewer say thank you so publicly. Here is what our President has to say about the value of gratitude and taking the time to express appreciation.

On May 24, 1999, 25 years ago, I arrived on an airplane into Denver, Colorado. This date was about a week after my graduation from the University of Wisconsin, airport security had not been impacted yet by September 11, and we hadn't actualized the partying like it was 1999. I was fortunate to have a job lined up out of college, but it would not start until mid-August. Fortunately for me, earlier in the year a friend talked to me about what I might do with my spare time. I shared that my goal was to do as little as possible, and they challenged me to wonder if that was the best choice.

My friend was a blind person who got me to consider attending the Colorado Center for the Blind. I partly decided to do so because I didn't have a great excuse for avoiding it, but in the month leading up to my arrival in Denver, I began to understand how truly monumental it would be.

With the limited time I had at the Colorado Center for the Blind, I used every potential hour in class and outside of class to undertake the training that the skilled center staff were offering me. The training had two components: the actual day-to-day techniques and tasks that a blind person uses to be successful (or maybe it is more accurate to say the understanding that almost every task perceived to require vision truly does not and the methods for working out the solution) and the development of the internal pattern of thought for self-determination, high expectations, and integration into society on terms of equality.

When I landed in Denver, I was nervous, but I also somehow falsely believed I would leave with all of the skills and understanding I needed. I discovered that the learning, growing, and thinking was a lifelong journey that I am still on, but the Colorado Center for the Blind prepared me to take on every challenge that has come my way.

In many ways, the instructors I had at the CCB have been important lifelong mentors for me. Amazingly, some of them I have even had the challenge of supervising later in positions that I have taken on. All of them have continued to be strong friends and marchers with me in the National Federation of the Blind, where all of us have continued that journey of growth and exploration. In many ways, the accomplishments of my last twenty-five years have their fingerprints on them whether they recognize it or not, so this post is to honor them (in no particular order):

Julie Deden was the new Director of the Colorado Center for the Blind when I arrived in May of 1999. She had taken over the leadership role at the Center after some challenges and after the tremendous leadership of Diane McGeorge. Let me pause to say that Diane and Ray McGeorge were leaders in the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado, and while they did not feature as part of my instructors at the Center, their impact on my life is no less significant. I think of them every day when I walk through or sit in the Diane and Ray McGeorge Living Room at the NFB Jernigan Institute. That deserves a post of its own. Back to Julie.

While Julie was a new director, it was clear that her understanding of the problems blind people face, her faith in the capacity of people who happen to be blind, and her determination to challenge every student to achieve maximum independence was infectious. Since my time at the Center, I have called on Julie so many times for perspective. I have learned from observing her work, and we have linked arms in many uplifting challenges like reorganizing the National Federation of the Blind of Montana—not to mention that we have shared laughs, tears, and sometimes both, often over a glass of wine or a good meal.

Dan Wenzel was the assistant director at the Center when I arrived. He later became my brother-in-law, but on the day I landed in Denver, he could not meet me at the airport (this normally would have been his job). That was the day his first child was born—so happy birthday to Roland Wenzel. Dan always had a great way of working with students, listening to their concerns, and helping students craft their own solutions. During my time at the Center, I mostly observed Dan through his leadership as we did not have too many interactions on a day-to-day basis. However, the time I spent getting to know Dan and his wife Jennifer and watching them with their new baby set a powerful example of blind parents living the lives they want. The one time I did face a challenge at the Center and took it to Dan, he handled it with skill and professionalism that has always stuck with me. Dan was the one who handed me my Freedom Bell at the end of my training, and it sits next to me on my windowsill behind my desk for all to see.

Eric Woods was the tough and insightful blind travel instructor who totally changed my thinking and confidence around independent travel. I was always impressed when he would silently move ahead of me or to some other position without my hearing anything. He worked with me through the good trips and the bad. He rightfully made fun of me when I made really stupid mistakes because we had developed an understanding of each other that was very deep (I enjoyed his sense of humor). There is not a day that goes by that I do not think about Eric’s influence on my movement all over the world. Getting to know Eric in his day-to-day life, listening to him play guitar or wrestle his dogs, watching baseball, and just talking about life made my time at the Center invaluable. This was one of the few times I actually taught something on guitar as Eric credited me as teaching him how to play “Norwegian Wood.” And I should not forget that although the Center did not have an industrial arts teacher at the time, Eric gave extra time to work with me on power tools and making a project before I left.

Michelle Chacon was my daily living instructor. We talked and worked on dozens of things together. If you do not know Michelle, you have missed out. Like with the others, it was the example she set in her personal life with her family and her warmth in opening her family to me that made such an impression. I think about Michelle every time I fire up the grill, as sharing time grilling at her house was formative for me. Any time I pick up a spice bottle with a Braille label or consider how I am going to do something non-visually in the kitchen, I hear Michelle’s voice in my head. She is an incredible educator.

Dave Hyde was my instructor for a catch-all class where we worked on a variety of things. However, much of the time we would talk about important topics of policy, philosophy, and how to create change in society. Although our work together was always very serious and sometimes intensely deep, there was always a moment to review what was happening in baseball that day. Amazingly, Dave always had a story that was both entertaining and instructive, and I am pretty sure most of them were true. He is a master storyteller, and I learned a lot from him about connecting with people. It was a bonus to get to know Dave’s wife Nancy and share time with both of them. Congratulations again to Dave on his recent retirement. I have some Orioles tickets when you make it to Baltimore.

I cannot close this without mentioning Tom Anderson who, like Ray McGeorge, has already left us. Tom was the Braille instructor at the CCB, and he had a masterful command of measuring his students’ progress, pushing them further, and tracking many students at one time, all while not speaking very loudly at all (just enough to be heard). However, when you got him to laugh, you could feel the joy coming out of him, and there was no way you could resist smiling yourself. Tom knew that literacy was critical to success, and he worked to find the topics, books, or other content that would motivate students. Every time I touch a piece of Braille, my heart gives thanks for the worlds he helped open to me. Like the others, his powerful influence through the positive way he lived his life was invaluable. We miss you, Tom.

There are others I could share stories about—both students and staff—but this is what came on my heart this morning as I grabbed my cane, walked to my office at the National Federation of the Blind, got my cup of coffee, fired up my computer, and turned on my Braille display. Just another average day in the life of a man who happens to be blind, a life where the last twenty-five years have been so different because of these folks who gave of themselves to build me in new ways. While the building continues and will into the future, I hope that I am able to give back in the same spirit and warmth that each of these folks has during the time I have known them.

To those in training today, take full advantage of every moment you have to build yourself. To those considering training at any stage of life, I promise you that you will not regret it. To those of you who are in a position to support one of the Federation’s training centers with your time, talent, or treasure, you will not regret the impact you can make on a person like me.

Safeguarding the Legacy, Investing the Inheritance

Keynote address to the International Council on English Braille, delivered by Jonathan Mosen MNZM [Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit] on Sunday, May 26, 2024

From the Editor: Jonathan Mosen is well-known to Monitor readers, and so stellar are his remarks that a long introduction would only serve to keep the reader from them. I am honored that the Braille Monitor was sent a copy of the speech, and I have inserted my hand to Americanize spellings and to ensure it meets Monitor style rules. The word I like most in the presentation is gratitude, and the line I love is “I will never take it for granted.”

Madam President, delegates, and guests.

In 1952, after one hundred years of lying at rest in his beloved village of Coupvray, Louis Braille's body was relocated to the Pantheon in recognition of what the late Cyril White, a gifted and internationally respected blind New Zealander, called Louis Braille's "priceless gift to the blind." Hundreds of blind people accompanied him, canes tapping through the streets of Paris, to say thank you from the blind of the world.

Louis Braille lived a humble life, and his death from the tuberculosis that had plagued him for more than half his life was not widely acknowledged. There was no newspaper coverage, no recognition that the world had just lost a genius. Yet, just a century later, a blip in history, Louis was on his way to the Pantheon in a fitting testimony to the magnitude of his legacy.

Helen Keller was there that day to deliver an address in fluent French. In that address, she said,

On behalf of the blind people of the world, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for having generously recognized the pride and efforts of all those who refuse to succumb to their limitations. In our way, we, the blind, are as indebted to Louis Braille as mankind is to Gutenberg. It is true that the dot system is very different from ordinary print, but these raised letters are, under our fingers, precious seeds from which has grown our intellectual harvest. Without the Braille dot system, how incomplete and chaotic our education would be! The dismal doors of frustration would shut us out from the untold treasures of literature, philosophy, and science. But, like a magic wand, the six dots of Louis Braille have resulted in schools where embossed books, like vessels, can transport us to ports of education, libraries, and all the means of expression that assure our independence.

And now here we are in Auckland, gathered together on the bicentenary of the Braille code's invention, with Braille more vibrant and relevant than ever. Revering Braille the man and Braille the code as I do, I would have been honored to have received your invitation to deliver a keynote address at an ICEB General Assembly at any time. But to receive it in this particular year is both an honor I will cherish and an immense responsibility. When we reach such an important milestone, it is right that we take time to celebrate, time to reflect, and time to look to the future. I wish by way of this address to capture the precarious course of history that has led us to this point and to offer some thoughts on how we can continue to invest our inheritance of literacy, the master key to all the doors of opportunity.

But first, I acknowledge with considerable respect, the vital work of ICEB and the Braille authorities around the world. I mean it with affection when I say that one has to be a bit of a nerd to get excited about much of the work that ICEB does. But it is vital work, and given the nerdy nature of it, it is a testimony to the way many of us feel about the Braille code that proposals you make and decisions you take can often evoke strong emotions. You have ensured that the code remains relevant in a constantly changing world. Thank you for making a difference. You have done Louis Braille proud.

I haven't yet had the privilege of serving on a Braille authority, but I have managed the development of several refreshable Braille products, similar to the one I am reading from today. That in itself is a responsibility—to know that the decisions you make about the design of the hardware and the software that drives it directly affect those who are using Braille in all walks of life. After all, it only takes one defective Braille cell, with one defective Braille dot, to turn your house from having a roof with a significant peak, to a roof with a significant leak. This may be the only speech I will ever give where I can make that joke and have it understood by most of the audience, so I'll make the most of it.

Not only has the Braille code given me so much opportunity: Louis Braille's story, when I read it as a child, gave me my first taste of the blind pride I now feel so deeply. Having read how it came to be that I was reading dots under my fingers, it was lifechanging to learn that it was someone who was blind like me who'd solved the most significant problem blind people faced. One blind person utterly transformed the destiny of the blind of the world. Louis Braille made me realize that we as blind people can, indeed must, take charge of our destiny.

Blind people are a minority, and most of us, through much of history, have been marginalized, oppressed, considered unworthy and incompetent. I say most of us, because as Leona Godin so thoroughly and entertainingly chronicles in her personal and cultural history of blindness, There Plant Eyes, societies have had difficulty deciding what to make of us. A common theme that persists to this day is that sight is acquainted with knowledge, while blindness is associated with ignorance, willful or otherwise. It is telling, but not at all surprising, that many biographies of Louis Braille have light and dark in their titles. Historically, blindness has also been acquainted with sin.

It hasn't been all bad, though. Many ancients revered blind people as having special powers as seers, poets, and prophets, although they were seldom the heroes of their own stories.

There are also blind people throughout history who made memorable contributions outside the realms of prophecy and poetry. Even before the invention of the Braille code, there have been blind monarchs, generals, politicians, global travelers, lawyers, mathematicians, scientists, scholars, theologians, musicians, businesspeople, even astronomers.

So if blind people were making these significant contributions long before the Braille code, do we give Braille the man and Braille the code more credit than is due? My answer to that is an emphatic absolutely not. Throughout history, there have always been individuals from oppressed or disadvantaged minorities who have succeeded thanks to dogged determination, privilege, luck, or a combination of all those things. Some of us have a natural ability to create or pursue opportunity. Like all human beings, some of us are better at taking risks or seizing the moment than others. Some of us are more intellectually inclined than others.

The legacy bequeathed to us by Louis Braille is that his code not only makes writing and reading accessible; his code is the key to equality of opportunity. It hasn't made all those preconceptions about blindness evaporate, but when we can write something down and read it back, when we know how to spell, when we can discern the way a document is laid out, when we can create priceless memories that will last a lifetime by reading bedtime stories to our children or grandchildren, we have equipped ourselves with a skill that significantly narrows the chasm of opportunity.

The idea that the average blind person should receive an education was radical and new at the time of Louis Braille's birth in 1809. In 1771, at the age of just twenty-six and while walking the streets of Paris, Valentin Haüy happened to see ten blind men, who were being both cheered and jeered, wearing dunce caps, a cone-shaped hat that is used as a symbol of stupidity or ignorance. They also wore asses ears. They were pretending to play broken musical instruments. The atmosphere was one of humiliation and belittlement, lasted a month, and was known as "the café of the blind." As legend has it, witnessing this demeaning spectacle inspired Haüy to set up the first school for blind people. He promised himself, "I will put in their hands volumes printed by themselves. They will trace the true characters and will read their own writing, and they will be enabled to give harmonious concerts."

Ultimately, having been further inspired by a talented blind woman who was privately educated, he established the Institute for Blind Youth, the first school for blind children, in Paris in 1785. With the school's creation came the introduction of a key element of blind culture for children and young people that was to last around two centuries. Young children would travel long distances and be deprived of regular family life for much of the year in order to receive an education.

Taking that journey from his village of Coupvray in 1819 was a ten-year-old boy named Louis Braille. Louis had become blind at the age of three when, just trying to be like his dad who was a harness maker, he lost control of a sharp tool he'd picked up, lost his sight in one eye, and then lost sight in the second due to infection.

He was a bright child with a supportive, encouraging family. They taught him the print alphabet as a child using raised letters. Louis had actually been mainstreamed at his local school for a while, until a place was secured for him at the Institute for Blind Youth, where all knew he would flourish.

Since the school's founding, blind children had been reading raised print letters. The books were incredibly bulky. A few excelled at their reading; most did not, and all were slow. The full power of literacy was not available using this system in that they couldn't write something down and read it back.

Once the students left the institute, there were no raised print books in the community, which meant blind adults were unable to use the skills they had acquired.

There had to be a better way, and a thinker, inventor, and former military man, Charles Barbier, was thinking about the problem. Given the commitment of this audience to Braille, I feel sure everyone will know the legend of Charles Barbier, who invented a system of night writing for the military, which the military rejected, so he thought it might help people who couldn't see. Legend has it that he showed it to the Institute for the Blind, Louis checked out the system, and this precocious fifteen-year-old told Barbier what was the matter with it. The trouble is, we now have compelling evidence that that's not what happened. That evidence is summarized in a fascinating article by Philippa Campsie, published in 2021 in the Disability Studies Quarterly, called "Charles Barbier: A hidden story." The narrative about Barbier having invented the code for the military was mere speculation on the part of the author Pierre Henri, in his book published in French whose title, translated into English is The Life and Work of Louis Braille. Henri did not have access to Barbier's papers, so he made an educated guess as to how Barbier's code ended up under Louis Braille's fingers. In the book, he states, "As a former captain of artillery, Barbier had perhaps once felt how useful it could be for officers in the field to be able to write messages in the dark and later read them with their fingers." It's a plausible theory in the absence of firm evidence. But over time, the theory has been considered established fact. With Barbier's papers now readily available, we can debunk the theory altogether. We know that the blind were in fact the primary audience for his tactile code, one of several codes he was working on in an effort to simplify the process of reading and writing to make it more accessible to those for whom conventional Latin characters proved difficult to learn, including the poor and working class.

While it is true that a phonetic version of Barbier's raised dot writing code existed, it is not true that it is the only one that existed. The phonetic one was Barbier's preferred method, but having been taught to read print at the Institute, students there preferred the system that used the written alphabet. The twelve-dot alphabet system, while suboptimal because of the size of the cell, was easy to learn, and students who knew the print alphabet picked it up quickly. Writing the code was straightforward, because Barbier developed the tools for writing it and distributed them freely.

The idea that there was some sort of fractious relationship between Barbier and Braille is also false, based on primary documents. Letters now make it clear that Barbier had not heard of Louis Braille or his system of writing until 1833, four years after the publication of the first draft of the Braille code. When they did get to know one another, the correspondence was cordial, and it was clear that there was considerable mutual respect.

In telling you this, you might ask if I'm not undermining the revered place Louis Braille has in blindness history and culture. Far from it. Think of it this way: Without Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and others, the Beatles couldn't have created the most significant popular music of the twentieth century. The fact that "Heartbreak Hotel" came first doesn't detract from the stunning brilliance of "A Day in the Life." We in no way lessen the credit due to Louis Braille by giving Barbier his.

The facts about the respective roles of Barbier and Braille are an example of a pattern repeated many times in blindness history. Barbier's heart was clearly in the right place. He was what today we would describe as "a sighted ally." He believed in the dignity that comes with being able to read and write, and he actively sought to find a way to give that to blind people. But it took a blind person to refine the concept and make it truly viable.

Louis Braille was a gifted organist, and as an adult briefly considered leaving his job as a teacher at the Institute for Blind Youth to become a parish organist. Little wonder then that he turned his considerable ability to using his system to make it possible for blind people to read and write music. His elegant six-dot cell contained enough capacity for musical notation. The code accommodates any instrument and was so superior to existing methods that music was the first official use to which the Braille code was put at the Institute.

While the Braille code is what Louis is most known for, he in fact was the first to make a discovery that impacted the lives of almost everyone on the planet. He invented a concept he called decapoint. Decapoint was a system of one hundred dots on a ten by ten grid. You could write it right to left with a stylus, then flip the page over and read what you'd written, but Louis didn't stop there. He enlisted the help of a friend to design a machine called the raphigraphe, or needle writer. Blind people were able to write in print and verify what they'd written. Sighted people could use the method as well, affording privacy to the blind student who could read letters from home without the need to ask a sighted person to read them out loud. The global significance of this is that decapoint was the first time that print letters were represented as dots on a page. A blind man had given the world the concept that would later be used in dot matrix printers, cameras, computer screens, and other technology. With technology evolving as it does, today we're talking many millions of dots. Nevertheless, the concept is the same.

We are fortunate that in the formative years of the Braille code, the Institute for Blind Youth was headed by François Pignier, who encouraged Braille's investigations and was a strong supporter. During his tenure, he published two editions of Braille's alphabet system, and under his watch, the first-ever book in the Braille code was produced in 1837. But Pignier was forced out of the role in 1840 by his ambitious and increasingly frustrated deputy, Pierre Dufau. Despite the overwhelming evidence of the efficacy of the Braille code, Dufau did not want it in his school. In his view, blind students should be taught to read print like everyone else, despite the clear shortcomings of embossed print as a tactile reading system and the many benefits of Braille. This was convenient for sighted teachers, who weren't required to learn anything different, but it was very much to the detriment of the students. I can only imagine the sense of anger, hurt, and injustice the students felt at this time. Blind students at the Institute for Blind Youth had had a tantalizing taste of full literacy; then the Braille code was banned, any Braille books that existed were burned, and those caught using the Braille code were punished. This was an atrocious form of abuse. But the kids were never going back. The code went underground. In fact, as any parent will tell you, and as we ourselves remember from our own youth, the one sure way to make something more attractive to a teenager is to ban it. It had become their secret code, a bond that drew young blind people together, a part of the emerging blind culture. While we are right to correct those who call Braille a language—it is not—this story is similar to the experiences minorities have endured over centuries, when they have been punished for using their preferred form of communication.

Eventually, the evidence was too overwhelming for Dufau to ignore, and when the new building for the Institute was opened in 1844, the students conducted a compelling demonstration of the code for the public. I am so pleased that Louis Braille got just the tiniest inkling of the extent to which he would change the world.

So, blind people the world over started using Braille right away, and we all thrived, right? Mate, there is a reason so much time is allocated in the agenda for this address.

The Institute for Blind Youth was the first school in the world to adopt the Braille code, with some other European countries following closely behind.

In 1876, through the influence of the British and Foreign Blind Association, later the National Institute for the Blind, Louis Braille's French alphabet became the reading code for the blind of Great Britain. It also included around two hundred contractions and abbreviations. They were revised in the early part of the twentieth century, and we got the concepts of what for many years were known as grade one and grade two Braille.

There are many examples of a divergence of systems that have created inconvenience for people but nonetheless have not been unified. Cars still drive on different sides of the road; there are different measuring systems and temperature scales, different voltage levels for appliances, and difference sockets to plug things into the power. There are also different Kilohertz spacing on the AM band, different TV systems, and different frequency bands for cell phones, just to name a few. Were it not for the determination of blind people, tactile codes may have been added to that list. Indeed, that's exactly how it was for a while, when America fought what in very dramatic fashion it calls its "War of the Dots." I could give a separate address devoted to the War of the Dots. It's a story of inventors, advocates, passion, vested interest, frustration, and political intrigue.

But let me give you the executive summary. Samuel Howe developed Boston Line Type in 1853 and remained opposed to Braille all his life. He believed that blind people having a separate code that did not resemble print was disadvantageous.

In 1860, the Braille code was adopted at the Missouri School for the Blind, and it became the first American school to adopt the code.

William Wait, who was the principal of the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind, was aware of the overwhelming evidence that many blind children struggled to read raised print. Many adults couldn't read it at all. He first tried to convince schools in Boston and Philadelphia to accept Braille, which he had seen delivering good results in Missouri. They refused, so Wait developed his own system, New York Point, which people have described as like a Braille cell on its side. Its advocates said that its biggest advantage was that it took up less space than Braille, so books were less bulky. Later, it was found that the variable width of a New York Point cell made it more difficult to mechanize, and punctuation was so difficult that capitalization was seldom used.

By 1871, New York Point had gained acceptance among an association of teachers of the blind who were mostly sighted.

By 1890, mirroring the experience of French blind students half a century earlier, some blind children in some United States schools outside Missouri recognized the simplicity, speed, and elegance of Braille and started using it for personal purposes, but it was frowned upon officially.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Boston Line Type was losing favor in the United States, and schools were either using New York Point or Braille. But just to add some more confusion, Joel Smith developed a code called American Braille.

You can appreciate that by this time, blind people were becoming frustrated by this increasingly bitter argument. In 1905, Charles Holmes, a blind man who was president of the Alumni Association of Perkins Institution for the Blind, articulated the mounting frustration of many blind people when he wrote in part:

In order to avail himself of the full range of literature (which at best is woefully limited), the blind reader must learn and keep well up in all these codes.... How long would our seeing friends stand for such a state of affairs in ink type? Imagine for a moment the ridiculous situation that would arise if the daily papers published in Boston had an entirely different system of characters from those used by New York publishers, and that a Philadelphia man could not read either without special training, because his own city had adopted a third, as unlike the others as the Chinese characters are unlike the Roman.... What we need, and must have—and will have if we make up our minds to it and stand by each other—is an international, universal code of embossed type for all English-speaking countries.

By 1909, a young woman named Helen Keller pleaded for the adoption of Braille universally. She had been required to learn four codes just to get all the material she needed. Not everyone had such skill or patience.

In an attempt to reach a peace treaty to end the "War of the Dots" once and for all, a Uniform Type Committee was founded in the United States. Eventually, it was determined that the way to choose the best code was to gather some quality data from blind people to determine which one of these competing systems actually allowed blind people to read the fastest. At the eleventh hour, something new and unexpected was introduced to this series of tests—British Braille. The evidence was clear. Readers of the British Braille system read more efficiently than those reading any of the American versions.

Yet still, America came up with a system based on Braille they called Standard Dots, which they wanted to be the uniform system of writing for blind people in English-speaking countries. The Brits were having none of it; they were happy with what they had. Why wouldn't they be; the evidence was clear. With typical English wit, they derided Standard Dots as "standard rot." The British system, based on Braille's alphabet, was already being used by then in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, India, and even by America's Canadian neighbors.

In 1917, America decided to adopt Braille in a manner that would be readable by other English speakers but with some of its own rules. This was called grade one and a half. What this meant was that those outside the US could read US Braille books but found the absence of some familiar contractions slowed them down, but Americans getting books from other English-speaking countries had difficulty, because they weren't being taught all the contractions.
 
Finally, in 1932, what became known as the Treaty of London was signed, which established a uniform English literary Braille system.

The genius of Braille's legacy, and those who have safeguarded and advanced it, is that Braille has remained largely unaltered from its original design, while being able to keep pace with mechanization, mass-production, computerization, and wider use of formatting.

People are still using the slate and stylus or the pocket frame, the original method of Braille writing where you use a stylus to poke dots through the slate onto a page in mirror image. I come from the Perkins Brailler generation and was never taught to use a slate and stylus at school. But those who were, or who picked it up themselves from an early age, have the closest thing to a pen and paper that a blind person can have, and the speeds that can be achieved are impressive.

There have been many mechanical Braille writing devices over the years, with early attempts proving cumbersome and troublesome. Viable mechanization came to Braille in 1892 when Frank Hall, who was superintendent of the Illinois Institution for the Education of the Blind, invented the Hall Braille Writer. It had the basic functions that would become typical of such products, including a six key keyboard and a moving carriage like a typewriter.

There were numerous others, but the big breakthrough occurred in 1951, when David Abraham, a teacher at the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts, first showed his Perkins Brailler, which had been under development for many years. It would have been released considerably earlier, but all manufacturing materials and production were dedicated to the Second World War. It was built like a tank, so could withstand the rigours of school life and required a relatively light touch. It was quieter than earlier devices. Still, get a bunch of kids in a classroom hammering away on them, and they could create quite the racket. It has been a remarkably enduring, successful product. At the school for the blind I attended as a child, when you were presented with your very own Perkins Brailler, it was a major life event, a rite of passage. It's a testimony to the precise and premium manufacture of these devices that that Perkins I was presented with as a young child saw me all the way through high school, university, and as an adult in the computer era I'd still used it from time to time to label things. As a kid with non-24 sleep/wake disorder before we called it that, the Perkins was at just the right height to rest my head on it and have a quick noddy if the teacher wasn't paying me too much attention.

The mass-production of Braille material was given a significant boost in 1957, when the thermoform machine was developed. It was useful not just for textbooks and music, but also for tactile graphics. From a single master, it was possible to create multiple copies of a book cost-effectively and efficiently. The Braille was durable, able to withstand the passing of books from student to student over the years.

The mainstreaming of blind children created additional pressures for champions of Braille, and resourcing challenges for public policy makers. The idea that blind children should be educated in the least restrictive environment, a concept now enshrined more widely in international instruments such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is laudable and important. Much has been achieved because of concentrated pockets of excellence in blindness education. Schools for the blind offered opportunities for mentoring, and for what today we would call networking. In earlier times, they have been catalysts in several countries for the formation of the organized blind movement, which in turn has created more societal change. However, for many, the costs have outweighed the benefits. Those costs have included separation from family which caused life-long fractures in the family dynamic, and in some cases abuse. Mentoring and networking opportunities for blind kids are essential and must continue to be delivered in ways that reflect today’s schooling practices. Policymakers have been slow to appreciate and acknowledge that having disabled kids attend their local school is resource intensive. The means of achieving equitable education will require varying degrees of ongoing resourcing depending on the impairment type. For some, making one-off modifications to the built environment may be sufficient. For blind children, however, it is important to recognize that if a classroom teacher does not know Braille, that classroom teacher is, in blindness terms, illiterate. With blind children now found in many more schools, there is increased pressure on accessible format resources and teachers who know Braille. The struggle for advocates of Braille has been tough. It still is. We must ensure that Braille is not limited only to the blindest children or those who are perceived to be the most capable. Everyone has the right to read. We must also proudly proclaim that Braille is not a last resort or something to be ashamed of. It is an attitude that can be summed up in the sentence, "This child can read print, but this child has to read Braille."

As is the case in every aspect of life, computers changed everything for Braille. Their impact was first felt on the production of Braille through Braille translation software as early as the 1960s. In 1976, the first edition of Duxbury was installed for a paying customer when it arrived at the CNIB.

Soon the era of microcomputing was upon us, and it wasn't long before a myth, perhaps a hope among some, took hold. It was suggested that now that computers could talk, we don't need expensive, bulky old Braille anymore. There was no shortage of so-called experts who said Braille had outlived its usefulness and would simply die out. Never a falser word was spoken.

By the early 1980s, there was plenty of innovation taking place on the Apple II platform. The first computer I used was an Apple IIe which included Raised Dot Computing's Braille Edit software. The programming genius behind it was David Holladay, who died earlier this year.

Connected to that Apple IIe was a Cranmer Modified Perkins, a relatively low-cost Braille embosser, and one of several embosser products that were becoming available at that time.

While it was becoming easier to produce Braille and get it on paper, a quiet revolution had begun in the form of refreshable Braille displays. I was fortunate to have access to a VersaBraille from Telesensory Systems Incorporated and was delighted to see one again when I visited the Louis Braille Museum in Coupvray. The VersaBraille was an early example of computers not replacing Braille, but making it more vibrant than ever. On a C60 cassette, you could store hundreds of pages of Braille, and even though the device was heavy, you could still carry many volumes of Braille with you.

In a touchable glimpse of the future, we connected all these devices together. Because I showed a bit of aptitude with this technology and quickly got to the point where I could troubleshoot for the teachers, I was allowed to push the boundaries and use a VersaBraille for some of my classes and even some of my exams. This changed my life, because before that, I would have to first Braille my work and then type it out on an Olympus typewriter so my teacher could read it. I was always in a hurry, understandably I think. After all, I was effectively being required to complete my work twice, which I objected to. So, I would type quickly. I would frequently transpose letters in my haste, but not being able to read back my own work, I had no idea when I had done it. I was marked down for making errors I couldn't see and therefore couldn't fix. The combination of the VersaBraille, the Apple IIe, and a good old dot matrix printer, a modified version of Louis Braille's concept over a century earlier, changed all that. I could write in Braille, read it back, correct my work, and then send it to a printer. Astounding!

A less costly option that achieved this objective was the Braille'n'Print, which was introduced by the Australian company Quantum Technologies in the mid-1980s. By removing the bottom from a Perkins Brailler and inserting this device under it, a blind student could Braille their work on a Perkins, and have that work sent to a printer, thus halving the work we had to do.

Over the years, refreshable Braille displays have evolved, and although still expensive, they have reduced in price significantly in real terms. One of the achievements I'm proudest of in my time holding senior roles at assistive technology companies is overseeing two separate 40 percent reductions in the cost of refreshable Braille display products.

Braille devices were widely adopted in the blind community that offered note-taking, book reading, appointment management, and other functions long before such devices had become commonplace in the mainstream. Blind people in some parts of the world were accessing online book repositories long before Kindle, Apple Books, and other mainstream options.

The internet and the digitization of documents have, of course, radically altered everyone's lives, but there have been particular benefits for Braille readers. As a child, I would pester my three older sighted sisters and my parents to read the newspaper to me. So life changed for me on the day I first logged on to the CompuServe Information Service in 1988 and used the Executive News Service. It was expensive for anyone, but particularly for a penniless student. Yet, for the first time, I was reading a newspaper at the same time as everyone else. I dreamed of a day when I didn't have to ration my access to this treasure-trove of knowledge. As part of my daily meditation practice, I keep a gratitude journal. I frequently express gratitude for the fact that I can now read in Braille almost any newspaper in the world at the same time everyone else is reading it. I am glad to have lived in an era where I can remember what it was like before that was possible. I will never take it for granted.

Today, most offices are largely paperless. A blind person with a Braille display can write beautifully formatted documents and verify them before sending them to sighted co-workers. We can instantly read documents sent to us. It opens up employment opportunities that were previously difficult for us to do without sighted assistance. We must now work hard to change the biggest barrier that holds us back: misconceptions about blindness and our capability.

We can now bank, shop, and transact other business with dignity and complete independence, accessibility permitting of course. And we can self-transcribe. First came stand-alone reading machines, including the original Kurzweil Reading Machine. Then we had desktop scanners and cameras with dedicated OCR software. Now I commonly take a picture of a menu at a restaurant with my smartphone's camera and read the menu on my Braille display.

Many people around the world have access to BookShare, and possibly accessible format repositories unique to their own country. Additionally, blind people can now purchase a book from a mainstream eBook provider on release day and read that new bestseller in Braille at the same time as everyone else.

We have come a long way, and there has never been a better time in history to be blind. But all this assumes that people have access to the technology and the training to make the most of it. That is not the case far too often. Hopefully, we will see a combination of new technology that makes refreshable Braille devices more cost-effective to produce and recognition by governments around the world that the right to read is a human right. Increasingly, the best way to guarantee that right for blind people is to give every person who wants one a Braille display. This is already happening in several countries, and there are programs those of us who are not so fortunate can advocate for our respective governments to emulate.

Sighted people can now produce material of a quality and type variation that would have been possible only by professional printing companies a few short decades ago. Print has evolved to make greater use of typefaces and fonts. For Braille to continue to be a faithful representation of print and give blind people an appreciation of how today's documents look and should be formatted, Braille needed to evolve too.

One of the most significant modifications to the Braille code was the introduction of two more dots to the cell. This increased the number of possible combinations from 63 with a six-dot cell to 255 with an eight-dot cell.

Eight-dot cells had been used in some other limited contexts since the mid-nineteenth-century, but they are now commonplace on refreshable Braille displays and embossers. Time will tell whether eight-dot displays remain the norm or whether we'll see more six-dot devices to save cost. One of the strengths of an eight-dot cell—the fact that it could give you a one-to-one representation of the computer screen—no longer applies in an era of proportional fonts, graphical user interfaces, and multiple character sets, although the extra cells for displaying formatting information are still useful, and innovative attempts have been made to make the most of the extra two dots for more efficient interaction with STEM subjects.

Even though there is now no question among the informed about the primacy of Braille as the literacy tool for the blind, robust, highly technical, AKA nerdy, and passionate discussions continue about its evolution, and I suspect always will. In 1992, formal work began on the Unified English Braille project, in response to two giants in the field, Abraham Nemeth and Tim Cranmer, expressing concern over what they called the "proliferation of Braille codes" with different symbols for common characters. ICEB officially adopted the project in 1993, and I remember attending a fascinating conference about the topic here in Auckland. Later I produced a documentary for ACB Radio covering the controversies as the debate dragged on, particularly regarding the efficiency questions around the representation of mathematics. UEB has ensured that Braille is a code fit for the twenty-first century. Most Braille is now produced with the assistance of computer software, whether it be software powering refreshable Braille displays or translation software preparing a file to be sent to an embosser. It was imperative that ambiguities that could be confusing to machines be eliminated. It was absolutely necessary that we had symbols representing formatting that was seldom used before but is now commonplace, such as bullet points. A blind person needs to know they're there. Rather than the single all-purpose symbol that meant italics and a range of other means of emphasis, we can now depict precisely what emphasis is intended. There are numerous benefits, they are significant, and many of you in this room played a role in making it happen.

We will all, in our own ways, continue to invest wisely the inheritance bequeathed to us by Louis Braille and subsequent generations of Braille champions. Multiline refreshable Braille technology will open new doors, hopefully making it easier for blind people to consume rich multimedia content and pursue careers in math and science. The eBraille format will ensure there is a universally agreed upon, flexible, portable means of storing that information. Well, let's hope so; universality has always been hard-won with Braille. All this reminds us that the next chapter of the history of this precious code is ours to write. With the decisions delegates take at this General Assembly this week, you are making history, a history that will be summarized by someone else on the three-hundredth anniversary of the code, long after we're gone. I look forward to seeing what technological marvels lie ahead that will further ensure that every blind person can dare to dream, work hard to achieve that dream, and maximize their potential.

But the technical side is just one important part of that equation. The other part of it can be captured in a single word. Belief. Blind people ourselves must continue to boldly assert our worth. We must believe that it is our right, as it is the right of every citizen, to be given the opportunity to learn how to write something down and read back what we've written. Braille is the only equivalent to print that a blind person has. And until society at large agrees to give up reading, blind people must not be fobbed off with the erroneous idea that machines doing the reading for us is good enough.

If we internalize that fundamental belief in our worth, we must then be strident in our articulation of that belief to those who may be disinclined to resource our right to read properly, be it by not training and hiring sufficient teachers, or by failing to fund the tools that allow us to engage optimally in the information age. Not only is reading a human right; funding literacy makes economic sense. Why wouldn't any sensible government invest in part of its population's ability to contribute to society at many levels.

Like a number of you in this room, I have spent time at Louis Braille's birthplace in Coupvray, which is now a museum. I examined the exhibits with fascination, handling an instrument similar to the one that caused Louis's accident. I reflected on just how random, how precarious history is, how the course of people's lives can rest on a split-second decision or a path not taken. What would my life be like if Louis Braille hadn't had his unfortunate accident? How would the world be different if Pierre Dufau and not François Pignier had been running the school during the formative stages of Louis's work on his code?

I sat in the garden outside Louis's house, just meditating, almost overwhelmed by the moment and the knowledge of where I was. I thought about how different my life would be without those precious dots under my fingertips, as a broadcaster, a CEO, a dad, and a granddad. It seemed so woefully inadequate, but I bowed my head, and out loud in that garden, I said, "Merci, Monsieur Braille."

Braille is the name we give to this code that has unlocked the door to literacy for us; it is named after its inventor. I am proud that after consultation with our community here in New Zealand, our Braille Authority has now ruled that Braille, when referring to the code, should always be written with a capital B, just like the Morse code, Celsius, and other important scales, codes, and systems are. I hope in my lifetime to see the lower casing of the code's name eliminated in all ICEB countries. Louis Braille gave us so much; it is the very least we can do to honor him.

Coupvray, France, is a long way from Auckland, New Zealand. It may be a long way from where you live as well. But Euclid Herie beautifully pointed out that a memorial to Louis Braille is never far away. He said, "And so I say to you now, that if you would seek a memorial to Louis Braille, look about you. Whenever a blind person reads, two hands sliding gracefully across the page of Braille text, there is the living memorial to Louis Braille."

I began this address with the day Louis Braille's body was relocated to the Pantheon in recognition of his greatness. But that's not quite the full story. Coupvray was proud of this humble genius who altered the course of history for a once uneducated minority. They were reluctant to give him up. So a compromise was reached. In Coupvray, you will still find Louis Braille's hands—the hands which, as a child, inflicted the accident that changed history; the hands that experimented and labored as he perfected his code; the hands that played the organ and read Braille music; the hands that probably wiped away tears of frustration when his code was banned; and the hands that, perhaps, despite his modesty, were raised a little in celebration as he lived to see his code start to gain the respect it now enjoys. Two hundred years after the creation of this priceless gift, my hands have reached the end of these remarks that celebrate his legacy and challenge us to use it, cherish it, evolve it, promote it. I wish you well with your deliberations this week. Thank you for the honor of opening your General Assembly, and merci, Monsieur Braille.

Building the Movement: Achieving Our Dreams through Strategic Investments

by Denise Avant, Trisha Kulkarni, Lisamaria Martinez, Sanho Steele-Louchart, and Denise Brown

From the Editor: After having published our Strategic Plan last July, it seems wise to publish what folks said about it at last year’s convention. We are finishing up articles from the 2023 Convention just in time for a new batch from our 2024 event. Enjoy the read. Here is the way President Riccobono introduced this panel:

As mentioned in the Presidential Report, our Board of Directors felt that it was very important coming out of the pandemic period to reassess and recommit to strategically investing in where we need to build the organization. This convention is the primary vehicle for steering the organization, but between conventions, our board wants to have a framework for where we commit our resources and direct the organization. Our last strategic plan was developed late in 2018. We released it in January 2019, and it's a good example that a strategic plan is a framework, not an absolute. You may remember that in March 2020 we started doing a lot of things we had not strategically planned for, such as a virtual convention. The strategic plan is meant to be a guide for the board and for where we put our energy. Certainly we could not have imagined much of our work in the last three years from the perspective of late 2018. So we put together a steering committee which was a cross section of members to advise and guide the process to develop a plan that ultimately the board would have to accept and adopt the plan and recommendations, but that was guided by a number of members from across the organization who worked with our consultant over the last year, including activities at this convention last year, to really gather data from a broad cross section of the organization. I think they've done a great job in doing that.

I hope that you will have an opportunity to review the plan in the July issue of the Braille Monitor and get familiar with it.

The steering committee was made up of members and staff from all levels of the organization. There were a few board members who participated in the steering committee, and we have one of those to guide the panel that's going to present to you the outline of the strategic plan. And I want to introduce to you in her final moments here as a board member of the National Federation of the Blind—she'll be closing out her term when we adjourn this convention—from Illinois, here is Denise Avant. [applause]

DENISE AVANT: Thank you, President Riccobono and fellow Federationists. I'm going to try not to repeat much of what President Riccobono has already told you, but there are some points that I just want to reiterate.

The steering committee has been working for the past year to construct a strategic plan that will guide the growth of our organization.

Up here on the podium with me is Trisha Kulkarni, the outgoing president of the National Association of Blind Students. By the way, Trisha is all the way at the end on my left. Sanho Steele-Louchart is the next person. He is the president of the NFB of Oklahoma. He is an attorney, and he is also our legal affairs coordinator. Next to him is Lisamaria Martinez of California. She is chair of the blind parents group. Finally is Denise Brown, who is president of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the NFB of Pennsylvania.

You can see that these people represent a broad cross section of our organization. As President Riccobono told you, you can find the strategic plan in the Braille Monitor. I would urge you to review it, sit with it. You will be hearing more as the national reps come out to your state conventions in the fall and the spring.

Now, as I said, we have gone through many phases. One of the big phases is collecting your feedback and hearing your voices as our members. You no doubt remember that you participated in a survey last fall. We want to thank you for your thoughtful consideration and the time that you gave to the survey.

Since 1940, in our organization we have always carefully constructed strategic plans to build on the priorities of our membership that would be executed by our leaders. Like our past strategic plan, this plan sets forth the next steps for our organization and building our movement.

Now, one thing you can rest assured is that the plan does not change our philosophy or our advocacy direction or the role of the National Federation of the Blind's convention. It is simply a framework which our board of directors will use to keep our organization moving forward based on our time and on our limited resources.

Our plan has the aspirational statement which says, “We imagine a world where blind people can live the lives they want as valued and respected members of society. Our mission is that we work tirelessly to improve the lives of blind people by fostering personal empowerment, coordinating nationwide advocacy, and building a network of collective achievement.”

The next part of the plan is our values. This is the essence of our organization, the code by which we live, the principles by which we make our decisions. Our values as an organization are that we believe in blind people, we lead courageously, we champion collective action, we foster inclusion, and we dream big. [applause]

To help realize our aspirations and mission, we now will move to our commitments. So our first commitment is to innovate. Trisha will give you the highlights of this commitment and the priorities under the commitment. Trisha?

TRISHA KULKARNI: For a moment I want to take you to another event. Our national student division is hosting a regional seminar where we bring students from across the country to engage in resource sharing and mentorship. On the last evening of our event, we are debriefing and reflecting on our experiences. A student shares that before this event, they had never learned to dream big as a blind student. But after attending the seminar, they wanted to reassess their career.

There is no doubt that in the National Federation of the Blind, we encourage people of all backgrounds to dream big. That is why I am on this stage today. However, I think about how many circumstances had to align for this moment to be possible. The student had to find our organization. The student had to secure funding to be able to attend. And the student needed to see their experiences reflected in the other people attending the event. But what if these circumstances didn't align? Our first commitment to innovate is to invest in continuing to evolve our program and initiatives to increase opportunity, lower barriers, and raise expectations for blind people.

DENISE: Thank you, Trisha. Sanho?

SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: Hello and good morning Convention 2023. I am the legal program coordinator and the Oklahoma affiliate president. One of the titles that was not read today is that I'm also the LGBT+ group head here at the NFB. [applause]

Now, let me be clear. I will say my pronouns are he/him/his. And let me be clear that this is not an LGBT issue. This is an issue that involves all of us. Inclusion is a commitment that the Federation aspires to. We've come so far but yet have so far to go. It is sometimes easy to underestimate precisely how far we've come because we're still working every day that we are in this organization, finding and celebrating diverse voices, while also working on the things that we don't know that we don't know.

So personally, the way that this came up for me was that in September of 2005 at twelve-years-old and in the seventh grade, I realized I had a crush on a boy, and I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know any gay people. My parents were not gay people let's say. So that raised some questions.

Then a month later in October of 2005 I suddenly went blind. I had been fully sighted. I had no preparation. No anticipation that I would ever be blind.

So as you might imagine, all of my friends vanished. My family became distant. No one knew quite what to do with me because of having two minority identities in my case, one of them was a bridge too far.

Well, then I met the NFB. And from the first NOMC with whom we had that conversation where I talked about a boyfriend or used a gendered pronoun when discussing my personal life, I was accepted: as a blind person, as an LGBT+ person.

Well, that trend continued. What I learned over time within the Federation is that even though we are still doing that work, people are willing to learn and to listen and to, in fact, do the work.
Now having just turned thirty and been involved in so many ways, I see the National Board and steering committee has this value “to include,” meaning we include people of all identities, LGBT+, people from different faiths, people of color, we include everyone who wants to come to us and live our philosophy of blindness. That includes members, staff, affiliates. Really the way that they define it is that, in fact, the National Federation of the Blind commits to foster a culture that is welcoming, that is inclusive, that seeks and values diversity within this organization because we know that through diversity, we are stronger. [applause]

DENISE AVANT: Commitment 3 is “collaborate” and that is Lisamaria Martinez.

LISAMARIA MARTINEZ: Innovate, inclusion, and now collaborate. To collaborate is to leverage our community of allies, including employers, policymakers, donors, synergistic organizations, and strategic partners. To maximize impact and effect lasting change.

This commitment is 100 percent my jam. I very much believe in collaboration. I am a connector. I love to connect people with each other and see the synergy create magic.

I love to dream big, and I love to play the “What If” game. What if a blind person can get to the moon? What if a blind person could be the President of the United States? What if? [applause]

So to collaborate, we need to establish storytelling initiatives that raise awareness of blind people for their contributions across all sectors of society. To collaborate means to leverage our expertise to build relationships with synergistic organizations to advance access and opportunities. To collaborate means to develop curriculum for educators that promotes greater understanding about blindness and affirms the capacity of blind people.

So I encourage you, better yet—I challenge you, I dare you to dream big. I dare you to think of innovative, inclusive projects that we can do. I already believe that we as blind people are the experts. I already believe that. So I'm ready to take that belief a step forward and collaborate with the rest of the world to ensure that everybody in the world knows that the NFB, or the blind of the world, are just as capable as anybody else. Thank you. [applause]

DENISE AVANT: Thank you. With the final commitment, dedicate, is Denise Brown.

DENISE BROWN: Good morning, everyone. As Denise said, the fourth pillar is “dedicate.” We must devote the financial and human resources required to realize our strategic priorities.

So let's start with the human resources. Can everybody out there just say “I”? That is the first word of our pledge. In this strategic part of the plan, we must recruit, retain, and build leaders. For those in recruiting, it is not just up to the officers and the membership chairs and the membership coordinators. It is up to all of us to find members for this organization. And where can we find members for this organization? Everywhere. Because everywhere is where blind people go. You meet them on the plane. You're at the sporting event. You're at the theater. You're in the airport. When you find these people, get their contact information. You can give them yours too, but you get it so that you can follow up with them and get them to a chapter meeting or a chapter event.

Okay. Once we recruit them, we want to retain them. Let's give them a reason to stay and be productive in the organization. Make sure they have a mentor so that they can understand this organization and continue to prosper in it.

Let's build leaders. We have leaders who have been in positions for very long times. And there's nothing wrong with that. But we have to build our organization with new leaders. We need everybody to want to do more, to gain the position.

When we talk about the National Federation of the Blind, we love blind people. We dream big. You've heard about the museum. And the dreaming big with the museum, we need financial friends to help us with our museum. But guess what? Say “I” again! That includes you too. If we are asking others to invest in what we see in our future, it would be nice if you were investing too.

Also we do many programs in the Federation. And we need to evaluate those programs that we are doing in each of your chapters, in each of your divisions. Are they working? Is there something that you need to do to change it so that more people come to the next event? Let's evaluate it and try to make it better.

And I know all of you are going to read the strategic plan and you're going to read it again so that you get a better understanding of it. But guess what? We have to support the plan among this organization. If you don't seem like you're in favor of it, how do you think your members feel? So give this plan a chance. We're working together to build the National Federation of the Blind because we want to be the best. And I'm going to turn this over to Denise Avant to close us out. [applause]

DENISE AVANT: Thank you, Denise, Lisamaria, Sanho, and Trisha. This plan is a framework, and it is what the incoming board will be using to guide our organization. But as members, we can't sit on our hands and do nothing. We have to be active participants. This plan represents the promise that together, with love, hope, and determination, we turn blind people's dreams into reality.

Thank you, President Riccobono. Thank you, fellow Federationists. [applause]

Charcoal and Challenges

by Marc Maurer

From the Editor: This article is gratefully taken from Future Reflections Special Edition on Cooking released in the Spring of 2024. Here is the way Debbie Kent Stein introduces the article:

From 1986 until 2014, Dr. Marc Maurer served as President of the National Federation of the Blind. The previous NFB President, Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, was his longtime mentor and friend. Dr. Jernigan loved to grill meat, and outdoor grilling became a rite of passage for first-time visitors to Federation headquarters in Baltimore. In this article, Dr. Maurer remembers how Dr. Jernigan introduced him to the art and challenge of grilling.  

I became a student in the program of rehabilitation at the Iowa Commission for the Blind in 1969. At that time Dr. Kenneth Jernigan served as director of the Iowa Commission, and he had created the most innovative program of its kind in the United States.

A few weeks after I got there, Dr. Jernigan told me that we were going to cook some hamburgers on the grill. He showed the grill to me and handed me a bag of charcoal, inviting me to put some in. Each time I poured some charcoal into the grill, he would check the pile and say, "More." Soon most of the bag was in the grill.

Then Dr. Jernigan invited me to clean my hands and form hamburgers from a package of meat he had brought. Each time I made a burger he would say, "Use more." Soon the burgers were enormous!

Dr. Jernigan showed me a cooking rack and asked me to put the burgers in it. Then he asked me to put some lighter fluid on the charcoal. When he thought we had enough, he told me to light it, which I did.

In a short time, a lot of flame was coming out of the grill. Then Dr. Jernigan handed me a pair of welding gloves, instructing me to put them on.

"Now," he said, "put your hand in the fire."

I thought he had lost his mind, but he had his own hand in the fire, so I put mine in, too. I discovered that it is possible to put your hand into the middle of a fire if you are wearing a welding glove and if you don't leave your hand there for very long.

After we had placed the cooking rack over the charcoal, we added the burger rack. We cooked the burgers for a few minutes, until Dr. Jernigan instructed me to turn them over. It is easy to turn burgers in a cooking rack without having to turn each one separately.

After a few minutes the burgers were done. They were some of the best I have ever eaten!

Later we experimented with cooking steaks. A fairly gentle fire is good for cooking hamburgers because the grease drips down from them and catches on fire. The grease makes the flame too hot for burgers unless the fire is gentle.

Steaks demand a much hotter fire. They should be sealed on the outside and have a juicy center. The fire does the sealing.

Cooking on a charcoal fire was one of the lessons Dr. Jernigan used to demonstrate the capabilities of blind people. Often we are told that many aspects of life are too dangerous for blind people to approach. Yet these experiences are not dangerous at all if the blind person uses good techniques. I have taught hundreds of people to cook steaks. I still cook burgers on Christmas Eve over a wood fire when a grill is available. A grill is always available at my house. 

Public Access Barriers for Guide Dog Teams: Survey Report

by The Seeing Eye

From the Editor: Rideshare is one of the most promising services that has emerged for blind people in a long time. Unfortunately there is a downside, and that is that some drivers do not want to provide rides to blind people using guide dogs. The National Federation of the Blind has been working on this problem for several years, and a frequent question has been whether the schools are involved. Clearly the Seeing Eye is involved, and they have graciously let us reprint their survey. By way of a final note before we get to it, recent legislation has been passed that should make the requirements for doing the paperwork to fly with a guide dog less onerous, the suggestion being that a person will register once per year. We will certainly have an article about this legislation later in the year. Here is the survey:

Background

Advocacy has always been at the core of The Seeing Eye’s mission to enhance the independence and dignity of people who are blind or low-vision by matching them with Seeing Eye® dogs. In 1928, as Morris Frank was matched with Buddy, our co-founder Dorothy Harison Eustis wisely informed Frank that Buddy would do him no good if he couldn’t accompany him wherever he needed to go. Prior to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, service animal handlers had limited rights to public access. Morris had to engage in ad hoc advocacy, tackling one barrier at a time. By 1938, near the end of Buddy I’s life, Seeing Eye dogs were permitted on the federal railroads and the team had flown on a United Airlines flight.

Through the efforts of Morris Frank and other advocates, guide dogs became a presence in society before the term “service animal” was widely recognized. They are scientifically bred and trained to guide their handlers safely around obstacles, to stop at landmarks, follow their handler’s directional cues, and to intelligently disobey a command that would put the team in danger. They wear U-shaped harnesses, and it is generally obvious that they are guiding a blind person.

The passage of federal laws such as the ADA, the Fair Housing Act (FHA), and the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) have given people with service animals the right to go virtually everywhere with their dogs. Implementing US regulations have defined service animals as dogs individually trained to perform a task for the benefit of a person with a disability. In Canada, federal and provincial human rights legislation affords people with disabilities access to public places and other settings with their service animals.

A growing understanding of how animals can mitigate the symptoms and manifestations of both visible and invisible disabilities has led to a significant increase in service animals throughout the United States and Canada. Service animals may or may not wear vests or harnesses and may be performing a task that is not obvious to anyone but the handler. Businesses and other public entities have become increasingly confused about what a “real” service animal is. The confusion has been compounded by people who bring their pet dogs into public places that are not trained to perform a task or behave appropriately in those settings. More than half of US states have responded to this problem by passing laws making it a criminal offense to misrepresent a dog as a service animal.

As a result of these developments, The Seeing Eye has been hearing from our constituents anecdotally that barriers to equal access with their Seeing Eye dogs have increased in recent years. The Seeing Eye conducted an online survey of guide dog handlers throughout North America during October and November 2023. In the interest of obtaining a robust sample, the survey was made available to all guide dog handlers in the US and Canada, regardless of where their dog was trained. The survey was broken down topically with questions about access barriers encountered in public places, rideshares, and air travel. More than 500 guide dog handlers responded to the survey.

What We Learned

We learned that despite the laws that have been in place for many years to give guide and other service dog handlers equal access, those laws are not nuanced enough to keep up with our changing environment. There is an overall lack of understanding among members of the public, business owners and their employees, and public servants about legitimate service animals.

Access Barriers in Public Places

The survey asked guide dog handlers how frequently they are denied access to businesses and other public places with their dogs.

• 28 percent of US and 32 percent of Canadian respondents said they are denied at least sometimes.
• 50 percent of respondents said they are rarely denied access.
• “Frequent” denials were more common in the South (10 percent) than any other region of the US and handlers said denials were “rare” (60 percent) most often in the Western US.

We learned that certain misconceptions about what businesses can ask of service animal handlers persist.

• 22 percent of US respondents and 39 percent of Canadian respondents have been told their dogs must be wearing a vest to enter public places.

There is no legal requirement in either country that service animals wear specific equipment to demonstrate that they are in fact service animals. Some service animals do NOT require equipment in order to perform their task.

The number of respondents who have been told they must show ID to enter a business was high.

• 54 percent of US respondents and 76 percent of Canadian respondents have been told they must show ID to enter a business.

ADA regulations make clear that it is illegal in the US to require that people with service animals show ID to enter a business. Although some Canadian provinces issue government IDs for service animals and while businesses can ask for them, they are not allowed to condition entry into the business on producing the ID if there are other ways to show that the dog is a service animal.

• Over 50 percent of respondents in both countries were told they could not enter with their dogs because other people accessing the business could have allergies, which is illegal in both the US and Canada.
• Almost 50 percent of US respondents and over 33 percent of Canadian respondents have been told at restaurants that they could only sit outside or far from other patrons with their dogs, even though laws in both countries make it illegal to segregate or isolate patrons due to the presence of a service animal. This response was far more common in the Western US (63 percent).
• It is illegal in both countries to charge fees or deposits due to the presence of a service animal, however, 37 percent of US respondents and 48 percent of Canadians experienced this in settings such as hotels.

Unfortunately, access barriers are not just denials of entry or unequal access to goods and services. Access barriers are now created by people with poorly controlled dogs that are not service animals.

• Approximately 75 percent of both US and Canadian respondents reported that within the past 5 years, they have been prevented from safely working with their guide dogs inside businesses and other public places due to an increase in poorly behaved dogs.

Rideshare Denials and Unequal Treatment

Although rideshare drivers use their private cars when working for companies like Uber and Lyft, they have opened their vehicles to the public and are covered by the ADA and company nondiscrimination policies requiring them to transport people with service animals.

Rate and Nature of Denials

• Over 75 percent of respondents in the US and Canada said they use rideshares to get around with their guide dogs.
• Approximately 80 percent of respondents who are rideshare users in the US and Canada have experienced a denial of service due to the presence of their guide dogs at some point.
• Approximately 40 percent of respondents who are rideshare users in both countries are denied at least 25 percent of the time.
• Approximately 80 percent of respondents have had their drivers deny rides by communicating verbally that they will not take the dog, even after they know it is a service animal. Drivers in the Midwestern US were most likely to at least communicate with the handler about the denial (88 percent).
• 80 percent of respondents have also had drivers drive away and cancel the ride without communicating with them at all. These types of denials were more common in the Northeastern US (87 percent).

Handler Experiences and Response

• More than 50 percent of US respondents said they sometimes decide not to bring their guide dogs with them because of their experiences with being denied rides.
• More than 50 percent of respondents had drivers who accepted the ride but complained about having to transport the dog throughout the trip. Some guide dog handlers were charged cleaning fees or received bad ratings. The majority fight back by filing discrimination complaints against the drivers with the rideshare company.
• The good news is that over 90 percent of respondents reported having experiences with courteous drivers who provided a great service. Notably, 95 percent of respondents who live in the Northeastern US reported experiences with courteous drivers (the highest rated region), despite drivers in the Northeast being the least likely to communicate verbally when they deny rides.

At least one respondent offered the reminder that handlers also have a responsibility to treat rideshare drivers and their property with respect. “I think handlers should express respect while educating … letting them know that I appreciate the ride and show respect by ensuring the dog does not climb on seats, is very clean and does not smell and offer a reasonable tip … I know I have rights to access but I also know that where I access is not my property and is shared by many. Respecting that, and demonstrating it reassures the driver, that they matter too.”

Air Travel

Guide dogs have been flying with their handlers for almost 90 years, and they did so with relatively little hassle until the US Department of Transportation issued regulations in 2020, making it more difficult to fly with a service animal. The impetus for the new regulations was the increase in people trying to pass off their poorly behaved pets as service animals. Prior to 2020, the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) definition of service animal included emotional support animals that did not have to be dogs and did not have to be trained to perform a task.

The new regulations aligned the definition of service animal with the ADA definition, meaning that a service animal must be a dog trained to perform a task for an accompanying air traveler with a disability in order to fly. This came as a relief to many service animal handlers who had experienced alarming encounters with poorly behaved animals at the airport, but the regulations did not stop there. Airlines are now allowed to require all service animal handlers to complete a form up to 48 hours before flying (assuming the reservation was made that far in advance) attesting to their dog’s health, training, and behavior.

Airlines are required to use a standard form available in fillable PDF format accessible to people who use screen readers, but airlines are given wide latitude in the user interfaces they use for receiving the form and tying it to the reservation. Furthermore, although the form supposedly meets basic accessibility guidelines, it does not work reliably on some operating systems with older screen readers and is not compatible with mobile devices.

• About 63 percent of US respondents and 45 percent of Canadian respondents said they travel by air at least once per year.
• 62 percent of US respondents have had problems completing the forms due to inaccessibility or a lack of technology.
• 46 percent of Canadian respondents encounter obstacles related to forms. Canadian air travel regulations have also become stricter, and many Canadians fly in and out of the US, which may explain the high percentage.

People with guide dogs who simply do not have technology or sighted assistance to complete the forms must rely on asking airline employees at the airport to make accommodations by assisting with the forms so they can fly, but that assistance is not guaranteed.

While guide dog handlers figure out how to navigate new access barriers during air travel, old ones persist. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) regulations for screening service animals have not changed recently, but guide dog handlers still regularly encounter officers who are not informed about how to appropriately screen a service dog team.

• Over 50 percent of respondents have been required by TSA to be separated from their guide dog during screening or to remove equipment from their dog that is necessary for the dog to work, such as the leash, harness, or collar even though these demands go against TSA protocol for screening service animals.
• At least 25 percent of respondents said they simply comply with what is being asked of them to get through screening.
• Over 40 percent do challenge the TSA agent and ask for a supervisor.

Emotional Impact of Access Barriers

The survey gave respondents the opportunity to make open-ended comments about the access barriers they experience while working with their dogs, and some took the opportunity to articulate the emotional toll these challenges take even if no denial of service occurs.

One respondent commented, “Just because I did manage to get onto flights where an attempt was made to deny me service doesn’t negate the impact of the experience …. If someone challenges my entering a facility and I simply continue walking it doesn’t mean they didn’t try to deny me access. Unsuccessful denial attempts don’t keep it from happening the next time and do have a chilling effect on my interest in returning to those facilities or can make me exceedingly uncomfortable the next time I need to go there. … I have worried a lot more about how I will deal with denial attempts. I use rideshare less frequently than I might simply because there are times I just don’t feel up to a fight.”

The survey did not ask about the impact of access barriers on family members of guide dog handlers, but one respondent said, “The rideshare issue is my biggest concern. It is scary, inconvenient, and unpredictable, especially with children with me. They feel shame when with me now and beg me not to call a car.”

Guide Dog Handlers Will Keep Advocating

Despite access barriers, handlers still prefer the guide dog lifestyle.

• About 50 percent of respondents said access barriers have no significant impact on them or their work with their dogs.
• Only 5 percent of US survey respondents and less than 1 percent of Canadians said access barriers have caused them to seriously consider not working with a successor guide dog.

The majority of respondents said they deal with access denials by educating the entity about their rights or going up the chain of command. Some respondents commented that their dogs have been well-received everywhere and that they have never been denied access. Others commented that a confident and calm demeanor goes a long way toward moving smoothly through potentially difficult encounters.

Conclusion

The survey results have shown us that access barriers are influenced by factors like changes in how people travel and laws that miss the mark when attempting to crack down on fraudulent service animals. Work needs to be done to reduce these access barriers and increase awareness among the public, businesses and employees, legislators, law enforcement and other public officials.

Guide dog schools, handlers, and their allies can lead this effort, but the greatest challenge will be ensuring that those efforts are impactful and well-targeted. Collaboration between stakeholders and state and federal legislators to improve and clarify existing laws is essential to safeguarding the rights and safety of service animal handlers.

Both full-scale educational campaigns and grassroots efforts are equally important. Individual advocates can make a difference by distributing educational materials in their communities and through social media platforms. Educators, businesses, and service organizations can invite stakeholders to give presentations to their constituents, with opportunities for dialogue and respectful listening between advocates and the community.

At The Seeing Eye, education and advocacy for the rights of guide dog handlers has been an integral part of our core goals since Morris Frank returned from Switzerland with Buddy I in 1928. A media alert invited members of the media to a demonstration of Buddy’s training, and it is documented that reporters and pedestrians looked on in awe as the team safely crossed one of the most dangerous streets in Manhattan at the time. In 2024, as The Seeing Eye celebrates its 95th anniversary, a new Advocacy and Government Relations department was established to expand ongoing advocacy efforts and allow members of our staff to dedicate their full attention to continuing this vital work. In the spirit of partnership, we ask that you reach out to us and share your stories, both the successes and challenges of guide dog partnership and accommodation, so that we may collaborate, educate, and stay on the cutting edge of this issue.

Visit our Advocacy center at www.seeingeye.org/advocacy for more about guide dog handlers’ rights and to download The Seeing Eye Advocacy App for Apple and Android devices, which contains federal, state, and provincial laws and regulations in the United States and Canada and other educational materials.

Celebrating Fatherhood: An Interview with Michael Hardin

by LaShawna Fant

From the Editor: Dr. Fant has been a real source of helping us get to know people who deserve to be known. In this article she had intended that this recognition be published in June because she commemorates a father. June was big, and this article is one that can easily extend our celebration of fatherhood into July.

LaShawna Fant: Hello, Michael! Thanks for this opportunity to talk with you. Please share a little about yourself with our NFB family. 

Michael Hardin: Hello, my name is Michael Hardin Sr. I am from Indianapolis, Indiana. I have lived here for the better part of my life, excluding two years when I lived in Raleigh, North Carolina. I have three beautiful children: Makiyah, seventeen; Michael Jr, fourteen; and Makenzie, ten. I worked in a previous career as a diesel technician before losing my vision in 2018. I am still very handy due to working in my field of study for about seven and a half years. I can change a flat tire, hang blinds, mount a TV on the wall, and much more. I am a senior in the BSW program at Indiana University Indianapolis, pursuing my bachelor's degree in social work. I immediately plan to join the master's program and obtain my master's degree in social work, and I am an active member of the NFB's Circle City Chapter.

LF: Please talk to us about what life was like for you before becoming blind. 

MH: I worked as a diesel technician for the largest truck dealership in Indiana, Truck Country (formerly Stoops Freightliner), for about seven and a half years before losing my vision. In my leisure time, I spent a great deal of time spoiling my three children and participating in various chess tournaments around Indianapolis. 

LF: Since becoming blind, you have joined the Circle City Chapter in Indianapolis. How has this been supportive for you? 

MH: The Circle City Chapter has been the difference between life and death for me. I say this as I was at my lowest point in life when I joined, and after a failed suicide attempt, the Circle City Chapter helped pull me up by my bootstraps and provided me with the highest altitude of support. This showed me that life was not over due to me losing my vision. Successful, like-minded individuals surrounded me and changed my outlook on living with blindness. 

LF: I am glad you have so much support within your local chapter. You also won a national scholarship within our organization. What was this prized opportunity like? 

MH: Yes, I won a national scholarship in 2022 at the convention held in New Orleans. This was such an honor, since I was able to bask in my successes with my blind brothers and sisters and represent my chapter all at the same time. I had the opportunity to take my three children and my fiancé with me, and this was our first convention as a family. It was remarkably busy, and I enjoyed being what I would call a sponge, as I had the chance to soak up all the knowledge from the various vendors, chapters, and blind individuals in general. The only downfall was that my fiancé caught COVID during the convention while assisting attendees. 

LF: Why did you choose social work for your field of study? 

MH: I chose social work because I wanted to be the voice for others who could not speak up for themselves or did not have the opportunity to do so. I also wanted to provide others with motivation and be a resourceful advocate. I feel my resiliency makes me the ideal individual to work in social work since I have seen good and bad times and am alive to talk about them. I have hit the ground running, given I have had the opportunity to intern at major companies in Indianapolis, such as Eskenazi Hospital, Lutheran Child and Family Services, and Foster Success. I am a part of three honor societies at Indiana University Indianapolis and am paving the way for future blind students in Indiana. 

LF: It is great to have a heart for serving people in this manner. How did being trained to use alternative skills help you adjust to blindness? 

MH: I must say that my mobility instructor, Mrs. Brenda Jenks, has been the lifeline to my success at Indiana University Indianapolis. She has worked alongside me with my cane travel since day one at IUI, practicing my routes to and from classes and with general orientation and mobility. I have retained my knowledge of cane travel around campus and other buildings I frequent. I attended BOSMA Enterprises, completing a rigorous training schedule within the assistive technology department, and I continue to use the skills I learned daily.

LF: What has the journey of being a father been like for you? 

MH: As previously stated, I was a diesel technician and have always spoiled my kids rotten. I have always been involved in and outside my children's schools, helping them with homework and special projects before and after blindness. To keep it all the way one hundred percent, my support system has not been what I need it to be as a blind father, which is one of the things that lit a fire under my behind to get up and make something happen for my family. If some of you do not know my work ethic, I can honestly say that my three children do. This has been the catalyst for the unconditional love that my children have for me and the bond that we share. My children have been my biggest support since I have been blind, and if they encounter another blind individual, they will know exactly how to engage with them. 

LF: The unconditional love you and your children share is priceless. How have your children adjusted to you being blind, and how has this affected you as a father? 

MH: From my perspective, my children have been affected more than I have from my blindness, because they had depended on the fruits of my labor one hundred percent, and that had been abruptly halted. I did go into a period of isolation when I initially lost my vision, and my children experienced the repercussions of this, because I did not engage the same way as I did before losing my vision. I no longer felt comfortable attending the after-school activities that I was normally the heart of. The proud parent who participated in the multitude of school programs had now barricaded himself inside his home for weeks and months at a time. My children frequently reminded me that everything was okay and often placed a band-aid on my self-esteem to motivate me not to give up, as they had noticed a change in my daily activity. It was not until after my failed suicide attempt that I attended blindness rehabilitation and began to salvage my life and family for what it now is. My children went through the rehab process with me, and this brought us back to the normal engagements we had as a family again. I was again attending games that my children participated in, and I had begun to come out of my shell.

My children were very resilient during this process. They learned the proper techniques to be a sighted guide and became my eyes while out in public. I trained them on things to advise me of, and they would often pull and guide the grocery cart while I held onto the handle and followed their lead throughout the grocery store. My youngest daughter would frequently say, "Dad, I can't wait until you get your vision back so we can do this or that," often referencing fun things we used to do prior to me losing my vision. This would hit me so hard that I would compare it to someone punching you in your stomach when you least expect it. She was five at the time and eventually grew out of saying these things; little did she know I would be standing there trying my best to hold back tears. I knew deep down she did not understand the pain that it caused me when she would mention how she could not wait until I got my vision back. My son and oldest daughter just hopped right in there with no questions asked and adjusted to life's changes as if they had been pre-trained to deal with what was my new normal. My oldest daughter is now driving. I remember her at age twelve persistently begging me to teach her how to drive. I recall telling her no, to wait, and once I lost my vision, I swallowed those words. Because there had been many times that we had to depend on others to take us here and there, I had five cars sitting outside but was unable to drive due to my blindness. I remember riding in the car with my daughter for the first time after she obtained her license, and I thought, wow, she is really a good driver. Another time I can recall was when we were in the car, and she jumped on the highway. The thought I had in my head was, "OMG!" I was almost afraid to talk and could not wait until she took the exit near our home. But in all reality, my oldest daughter has matured so much and will graduate from high school this summer, 2024.

LF: What things do you enjoy doing recreationally with your children? 

MH: The most enjoyable thing I like to do with my children is hit the trail near my home for a walk or bike ride. We spend a lot of time on the trail, as we have two Cane Corsos, and they love to go on long walks. My children and I also like to have game nights where we play games like Left-Right-Center, Pass the Trash, UNO, and Monopoly. I also love having movie nights with my children and shopping at the Fashion Mall.

LF: That truly sounds like a lot of fun! Please share with us what sources of inspiration have been for you as you navigate fatherhood.

MH: My children are the most inspirational thing that keeps me going. I am determined to remain a positive role model in their lives despite being blind. The next thing that keeps me going is the inspiration I give others from my successes and my obligation to show the world that blindness is not the characteristic that defines me. 

LF: Michael, do you have any encouraging words you would like to leave with any father reading this article?

MH: Yes, I would say to believe in yourself and not let fear or doubt limit your success. Because despite being blind or visually impaired, you are still the same person. So, get out there and show the world that you do not have a disability but a different ability. As in life, you must play the cards you are dealt until it is your turn to deal.

Step Up to the Stove: Mixing Together Independence, Confidence, and Safety

by Elizabeth Rouse

From the Editor: Elizabeth Rouse graduated from Central College in Iowa in 2020 with degrees in English and theatre. While at Central she worked with other blind students in Iowa to re-establish the Iowa Association of Blind Students. Currently she serves on the board of the NFB’s Performing Arts Division and the National Association of Blind Lawyers, as well as two national committees. Recently she began a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in creative writing through an online university, helping her to share her stories with the world.

If you had told me when I was ten that I'd grow up not only to learn how to cook independently, but also to love my time in the kitchen, I likely would have given you some sort of dazed and confused expression and rolled my pre-teen eyes. Back then, the only time I spent in the kitchen was when I sat down at the dinner table with my family. Occasionally, I baked with my mom, with the ulterior motive of licking the spatula before I escaped any real responsibility, such as doing dishes. However, in early middle school, Chad, my teacher of the visually impaired (TVI), set in motion a journey that would culminate in my preparing a four-dish meal for forty people.

Chad was adamant that cooking was an essential part of independence. Over my protests he managed to convince my parents to incorporate cooking into my Individualized Education Plan (IEP) when I entered middle school. We started small, focusing on things Chad knew I liked to eat, such as smoothies and scrambled eggs. In my memory the main highlight of our time cooking together was finding a mouse in the sink of our school's resource kitchen! My fifth and sixth-grade science teacher was the only person truly excited by this discovery!

Although Chad was successful in getting me to brave the kitchen during his biweekly visits, I dug in my heels at home. I refused to practice skills that likely would have served me greatly during my undergraduate years. Because my parents are both sighted, I don't think they felt comfortable pushing me to practice nonvisual techniques that they did not use themselves. I remember that watching me load and unload the oven and practice knife skills unnerved my mom to no end. Because she had never seen a blind person operate independently and safely in a kitchen, she didn't know what a little nudging could empower me to do. My Foods teacher in high school did her best, too, but I was much more comfortable washing dishes and letting my groupmates handle the actual cooking tasks.

I left for college with the abstract idea that blind people could cook, but without the conviction that cooking was something I myself could do. Luckily, I chose an academic institution that required students to spend all four years living on campus. As a result, I never had to manage my own apartment and cook for myself.

During my freshman year I met and became close friends with two other blind students on campus, Katy and Marissa. Before the year was over, both of these young women left Central to undergo training in nonvisual skills at the Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB). They graduated from the program nine months later as completely new and improved versions of themselves. Through their respective experiences, they showed me how attending the LCB could transform a person's entire life.

The transformation of Katy and Marissa planted a seed that grew in me throughout my college years. Whenever we spent time together, they challenged me to think differently about my blindness in all facets of my life, including my time in the kitchen. We prepared meals together from start to finish—deciding what to cook, making a grocery list, visiting the store, prepping the meal itself, and (of course) cleaning up after we'd eaten. Their independence and self-sufficiency were addictive. By the time I graduated from Central, I knew I wanted everything they'd gained at the LCB.

My time in training looked a bit different from the experience of those who went before me. I attended the LCB in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the quality of my training was still top-notch. I started my days in the woodshop before I headed up to the West Kitchen to round out my morning. Conrad and Cameron, my Home Management instructors, slowly introduced me to the skills I'd need to complete the program. They began by teaching me to navigate the kitchen safely and create organizational systems to ensure that I grabbed my own materials instead of someone else's.

Later we moved on to harder challenges. I distinctly remember Conrad making me redo a cookie recipe two months into my program because I'd refused to waste time locating a mixer, opting to stir by hand instead. He encouraged me to think systematically when I searched for the mixer. The search involved opening and shutting twenty-three drawers before I could get on with my work. (Yes, I slammed some of those drawers, and yes, I still think the first batch of cookies tasted better!)

While I grew in so many ways during my time at LCB, I think I had some of my greatest epiphanies in the West Kitchen. Conrad encouraged me to learn from my failures instead of allowing them to define me. He showed me that cooking for myself and others could be fun, even when I set off the fire alarm in my apartment. Above all, he served as my friend and mentor. He was someone I could turn to when I felt overwhelmed by the rapid self-growth I was experiencing. I knew that if I messed up or needed to cry, he'd be there with a terrible joke or an amazing recipe he thought I'd enjoy. His guidance, at least in part, pulled me back into the kitchen with a desire to try something new, in spite of the possibility that I wouldn't succeed on my first attempt.

Sadly for me, Conrad left LCB to pursue his MBA in the middle of my training program. While his departure was hard on me, it gave me the opportunity to work with Cameron, another wonderful instructor, who pushed me to achieve even greater and grander things. Cameron is the instructor who assigned me to complete my small and large meal challenges at the Center. Each of these endeavors required me to prepare a protein, a grain, a vegetable, a dessert, and a beverage entirely from scratch.

I completed my small-meal and large-meal tasks in June of 2021. Part of the challenge was operating on a budget. My organization-driven mind flourished. I wrote out invitations with my slate and stylus, compiled grocery lists, and even chose playlists well in advance of D-Day. Preparing each of these meals proved to be both fun and educational. The reality of constructing my large meal will always be one of my fondest training memories.

Though I dove into the organizational tasks head-first, prepping a meal for forty people is bound to come with some unexpected twists and turns. To begin with, I had to move from the familiar West Kitchen to the East Kitchen, and I had to learn where all the dishes I needed were stored. Then I severely overestimated how much pasta sauce I needed to make. I visited my cane travel instructor's office to complain about sharing space unexpectedly with some students who were new to the Center and didn't know enough to stay out of my way. Needless to say, I got ample practice in deep breathing, practicing patience with myself and others, and re-emphasizing the need for flexibility in one's preset plans.

Throughout my prep days, my close friends at the Center lifted me up. They provided me with words of encouragement, sat with me while I cut up pound after pound of green beans, and offered to help with whatever clean-up tasks my meal accrued.

On the actual day of my meal, my mom, my aunt, and my mom's best friend, who happens to be my former Foods teacher, arrived in Louisiana to celebrate my accomplishment with me. I think watching me turn my plans into reality helped solidify their belief, as it did my own, that I really did belong in the kitchen. The friends who offered to help with clean-up came through, and I'll forever be grateful for their help. Without it, I might still be there cleaning, almost three years later.

I don't cook as much as I did while I was in training, but I rest easy in the knowledge that I can cook just about anything, confidently and safely. It's likely that I watch more cooking and recipe videos on TikTok than anyone I know. I don't hesitate to bust out my wide array of saved videos when the opportunity presents itself for me to cook for my friends and family. Without Chad starting me on this path and all the guidance and mentorship I received at LCB, I would have let my fear keep me out of the kitchen.

Ten-year-old me can roll her eyes all she wants. I'm glad I was finally brave enough to put on an apron and step up to the stove. I hope my story helps parents and educators see that blind students can accomplish far more than one might expect. Do what you have to do to get us started, even if it's something as simple as letting us lick the spoon!

We Need Your Help

Attending my first National Convention in Orlando, Florida, I was overwhelmed by not only the resources, mentorship, and national community of students, but the love that filled every corner of the organization. The National Federation of the Blind gave me the world. - Trisha

Blind children, students, and adults are making powerful strides in education and leadership every day across the United States, but we need to continue helping students like Trisha. For more than eighty years, the National Federation of the Blind has worked to transform the dreams of hundreds of thousands of blind people into reality. With support from individuals like you, we can continue to provide powerful programs and critical resources now and for decades to come. We hope you will plan to be a part of our enduring movement by including the National Federation of the Blind in your charitable giving and in your estate planning. It is easier than you think.

With your help, the NFB will continue to:

• Give blind children the gift of literacy through Braille.
• Mentor young people like Trisha.
• Promote independent travel by providing free, long white canes to blind people in need.
• Develop dynamic educational projects and programs to show blind youth that science and math careers are within their reach.
• Deliver hundreds of accessible newspapers and magazines to provide blind people the essential information necessary to be actively involved in their communities.
• Offer aids and appliances that help seniors losing vision maintain their independence.

Below are just a few of the many tax-deductible ways you can show your support of the National Federation of the Blind.

LYFT Round Up

By visiting the menu, choosing donate, and selecting the National Federation of the Blind, you commit to giving to the National Federation of the Blind with each ride.

Vehicle Donation Program

We accept donated vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, or recreational vehicles. Just call 855-659-9314 toll-free, and a representative can make arrangements to pick up your donation. We can also answer any questions you have.

General Donation

General donations help support the ongoing programs of the NFB and the work to help blind people live the lives they want. You can call 410-659-9314, extension 2430, to give by phone. Give online with a credit card or through the mail with check or money order. Visit our online contribution page at: https://nfb.org/donate.

Pre-Authorized Contributions

Through the Pre-Authorized Contribution (PAC) program, supporters sustain the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind by making recurring monthly donations by direct withdrawal of funds from a checking account or a charge to a credit card. To enroll, call 877-NFB-2PAC, or fill out our PAC Donation Form https://www.nfb.org/pac.

Plan to Leave a Legacy

The National Federation of the Blind legacy society, our Dream Makers Circle, honors and recognizes the generosity and imagination of members and special friends who have chosen to leave a legacy through a will or other planned giving option. You can join the Dream Makers Circle in a myriad of ways.

Percentage or Fixed Sum of Assets

You can specify that a percentage or a fixed sum of your assets or property goes to the National Federation of the Blind in your will, trust, pension, IRA, life insurance policy, brokerage account, or other accounts.

Payable on Death (POD) Account

You can name the National Federation of the Blind as the beneficiary on a Payable on Death (POD) account through your bank. You can turn any checking or savings account into a POD account. This is one of the simplest ways to leave a legacy. The account is totally in your control during your lifetime and you can change the beneficiary or percentage at any time with ease.

Will or Trust

If you do decide to create or revise your will, consider the National Federation of the Blind as a partial beneficiary.
Visit our Planned Giving webpage (https://www.nfb.org/get-involved/ways-give/planned-giving) or call 410-659-9314, extension 2422, for more information.
In 2023 our supporters helped the NFB:

• Send 401 Braille Santa and Winter Celebration letters to blind children, encouraging excitement for Braille literacy.
• Distribute over six thousand canes to blind people across the United States, empowering them to travel safely and independently throughout their communities.
• Deliver more than five hundred newspapers and magazines to more than 130,000 subscribers with print disabilities free of charge.
• Give over seven hundred Braille-writing slates and styluses free of charge to blind users.
• Mentor 321 blind youth during our Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning® Academy.
• Award thirty scholarships each in the amount of $8,000 to blind students.

Just imagine what we will do in 2024, and, with your help, what can be accomplished for years to come. Together with love, hope, determination, and your support, we will continue to transform dreams into reality.

The Strange English Language

Author Unknown, Sent from a FaceBook User

From the Editor: I have seen variants of this, but it and others are fun to consider. I consider this especially when talking with a blind person or rideshare driver who grew up in another country:

We'll Begin with a Box

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
Let's face it—English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and
get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell. We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out, and
In which an alarm goes off by going on.
And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

Taking Seniors Where They Are and Providing the Resources They Need

by Sandy Halverson

From the Editor: When Sandy Halverson decided to come to the Missouri convention that was being held in Kansas City, Sheila Wright, our state president, took advantage of the opportunity to get her on the agenda. We who heard her were inspired by her words and left with some concrete actions we can take to recruit seniors who can benefit so much from what we have to offer. In turn, we can benefit tremendously from what they have to offer. Here is what Sandy said:

My first interaction with seniors took place during the two years that I worked as a rehab teacher for Missouri Rehabilitation Services for the Blind. I didn’t know nearly as much then as I know now, and I can admit now that I didn’t know much about services needed by those with low vision. I naively thought they should just use the techniques I used, which is definitely not taking seniors where they are.

I don’t consider myself an expert today, but I’ve attended several national NFB Seniors Division virtual retreats, and most of the seniors I work with in Virginia have low vision.

How can we leverage our positive attitudes toward blindness, the extensive resources of our membership organization—with its specialized groups, divisions, and committees catering to various interests—and our friendships and support to engage this community once we identify them?

It is estimated that over one million persons in the US are blind, and each year over 50,000 will become blind. Studies show that only AIDS and cancer are feared more than blindness. The National Academies of Science found people who are fifty years of age or greater are more likely to experience symptoms linked to social isolation or loneliness. Twenty-five percent of the target population demonstrated these symptoms before the pandemic. The symptoms are exacerbated by older adults who experience sight loss later in life.

That being said, how can we in the NFB bring hope to this population, and how do we address loneliness and isolation? After all, most seniors do not text, but they’ll chat with you forever if you let them—but more about that later.

When our NFB Seniors Division was organized, I was sure there was nothing in it for me. After all, I was sure I wasn’t a senior yet (probably in denial), and there certainly wasn’t anything more I could learn about blindness. Wrong again! I don’t remember when I attended my first Seniors Division meeting, but I actually learned a few things. Jim Willows, a very competent, employed, totally blind man from California talked about hearing loss and the problems he experienced when his audiologist eliminated background sounds which were assumed to be a distraction until Jim pointed out that he needed some sound cues for orientation and to engage with his coworkers and the public. There was discussion about the public perception that the combination of blindness and advanced age increased the probability of falling. There were probably other things that I heard then that I don’t remember now, but those misperceptions about blindness could be applied to me, and I didn’t like it. I don’t wear hearing aids but might need to someday, and when I do, I want to get ideas and direction from my blind friends who are willing to share their experience; I have not fallen, but if I do, my blindness won’t cause that to happen.

I think we would all agree that as members of the NFB, we have observed many changes over the years, but a primary focus has remained building membership; and if seniors are living longer, we need them and they need us so they can also live the lives they want.

When I learned about a seniors program our Texas affiliate conducted, which was based on their modifications of our BELL® curriculum, I was intrigued and wanted that in Virginia. And while some may believe if you build it, they will come, you still have to find the “they!”
I can remember when I lived in Missouri, there were television ads inviting people to learn about the advantages of living at John Knox Village, which I never did because I really was younger then; I also had a rehab client who lived at Fountains at Greenbriar, I think it was called, in North Kansas City. I’d be willing to bet that both of those communities have low-vision groups that meet periodically, and a discussion of positive attitudes about blindness and vision loss is not likely to be among their agenda topics unless one of us helps that happen. If you find either an activities director or a chaplain at those retirement communities, you’ll get connected with and have an opportunity to share not only our positive message about blindness with those groups but demonstrate NFB-NEWSLINE®, Pilot Bravo pens for low vision, bold-lined paper for low vision, bump dots, and things that talk from clocks to glucose monitors. There are also visually impaired people groups who need to know about us and that low vision isn’t the end of the world. There is also more to life than waiting for the right research to come along that will solve your lack of vision. I hear stuff in those groups that just makes me cringe sometimes, but I remember when my expectations were low, and a lot of those folks have never been around a totally blind person.

I used to think if I shared with a prospective member all the great stuff the NFB does, that person would be hooked. I was often disappointed when that person rarely accepted an invitation to a chapter meeting or other program. I figured out that I had overwhelmed him or her, so I decided to change my approach. I became a better listener and tailored my approach to the interests of the person I wanted to recruit. Can’t read the newspaper or other recreational material? NFB-NEWSLINE and the National Library Service; let me help you get registered. Gardening? I know two master blind gardeners; let me get you connected. Movies and tv? Audio description and accessible programming at plays and in movie theaters. Photography? Capturing and Sharing Your World by Judy Dixon, a totally blind iPhone user. I have not read the book and don’t have to but I’m providing resources of interest to the person. I think you get the idea.

So how many members have we gained? I honestly don’t know. We have conducted eleven long-weekend retreats with groups ranging from sixteen to twenty blind and low-vision seniors, and I can think of three or four participants from each group who are now active in our at-large and other local chapters. At our 2023 state convention, we decided to hold what we called our Seniors Retreat Dinner, and you can’t get more family reunion than that! All participants were invited, many came, and many are now participating in our legislative activities among other things. And a couple will even be attending their first national convention in Orlando. They see the value of being with people like themselves, our philosophy makes sense, and they understand there is a lot to learn but that they must just get started somewhere!

Seniors who think there is no hope are excited by the problem-solving we offer and are amazed by our lived experiences as blind people. I don’t think of myself as amazing, but if you think I am, let me show you how you can live the life you want, and we’ll be amazing together! That’s the community they need to be a part of, and we need them in our family.

It’s gratifying to observe the fear transition to excitement about what’s possible and cheering them on after their first success, whether using a cane to go up and down stairs or slicing vegetables in the kitchen without cutting their fingers.

A seniors’ division isn’t necessarily the right answer unless there are several people who are passionate about finding seniors, meeting with them, and introducing them to some of the tools we use to live safely and independently.

Let me conclude this presentation with some participant quotes.

Peggy, age eighty-four: “When I walked in here, I was a wreck. Everybody had a stick, and I did not. It was intimidating. I was unarmed. After three days of jumping sticks, I’m not afraid of sticks any more. You taught us skills which we would have learned eventually the hard way. What you gave to us is there is not a person here who is a downer. You could not come as a downer and leave as a downer.” In Britain, it’s a stick (referring to the cane).

Nancy, age eighty-six: “The best thing was learning how to walk with a cane. It was an entirely new experience. It was pretty scary. Another best was home management. I learned a lot of tips. I cook for myself. That was helpful to not cut your finger. A good part is meeting other people who have similar experience to mine. I have low vision that started four years ago, and it is getting a little worse.”

Thomas, whose age I forgot to look up: “Up until this weekend, I was embarrassed to be blind. I didn’t want to have a white cane. I was always that blind guy. That whole feeling of embarrassment went away. There’s a lot of things that people do other than sitting in a chair and listening to books on tape, but you can do a lot more. I was not at that stage. People here are doing lots of things, and you can do that.”

Teresa, sighted spouse: “I got to witness a lot of things. I am getting a better understanding to relay to family members and friends who are trying to understand vision loss, resources, and connections.”

Klaus, eighty-five: “I looked on this weekend as a Mount Everest challenge, whether I could handle the business of going to and from locations in a place I didn’t know. It went very well. Thank you for the goodies which were unexpected. I was blown away by the Braille thing. Another benefit: My wife has dementia, and our son has been staying with her this weekend. I am gratified to hear that Alexa and JAWS will give me things to do so amen, brother!” Klaus called me later to tell me his wife had fallen, broken her hip, and would be in a rehab facility for a prolonged stay. The Braille he had learned a few days earlier made it possible for him to find his floor in the elevator and his apartment by the number on the door, when he had previously depended on his wife for those tasks.

Millie, age sixty-four sent this text: “This weekend was incredible, and I want to personally thank you for all your hard work, energy, focus, kindness, support, and dedication to our cause. I have a new attitude, which surprises even me” which was followed by three thank-yous and three grinning face emojis.

And with that, I thank you for asking me to present this afternoon. I hope some of what I said will be helpful, and I shall sit down now. [prolonged applause from a grateful audience]

A Blind Chef's Culinary Journey

by Cameron Loehr

Taken with appreciation from Future Reflections, Special Edition on Cooking, Spring, 2024

From Editor Debbie Stein: It is all too common for sighted adults to discourage blind children from helping out in the kitchen. The blind child is likely to absorb the adults' anxieties, concluding that the kitchen is a scary and dangerous place. In this article Cameron Loehr recounts how, with his father's help, he overcame his fears and developed a passion for cooking.

I'm an instructor in daily living skills at the Louisiana Center for the Blind in Ruston, Louisiana. One might find it hard to believe that I, who once feared the kitchen, now teach others the art of cooking.

Growing up as a blind child, I was seldom allowed to be in the kitchen. I was never asked to help out when my grandmother or my father cooked. Even when I reached my teens, they gently pushed me out of the kitchen or shooed me away from the grill. While everybody else was preparing food for family functions, I was sent off to supervise the younger children. Over time these experiences filled me with anxiety and fear about being in the kitchen, a place that was wholly unfamiliar to me.

Then, when I was sixteen, my dad realized I should learn to cook for myself so I'd be prepared when I eventually moved out on my own. That summer Dad spent nearly every evening instructing me on how to cook and introducing me to a variety of family recipes. I didn't enjoy it at first. I thought I had better things to do with my time.

Learning to cook was definitely not easy, and I made plenty of mistakes along the way. Once, when my dad was teaching me to make fried chicken, I mistook the powdered sugar for flour. The chicken certainly didn't taste right, and the sugar really didn't stick to it. My dad quickly figured out my mistake and laughed it off. That night we had sandwiches for dinner.

I discovered that I enjoyed cooking when other people enjoyed my food, so I kept going. A few years later I lost my dad to illness. Cooking became a way for me to honor his memory and preserve our family recipes.

When I was in my early twenties I started to lose my remaining vision. I needed to learn to cook entirely without vision. I enrolled at the Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB) and completed intensive training in blindness skills. I regained the skills I'd previously learned when I had limited vision, and I built upon those skills using nonvisual methods.

My self-confidence soared as I recreated dishes I'd once made using my limited sight. I dove into cooking dishes I had never prepared when I had some usable vision. I even ventured into baking, an area that had always intimidated me. The first time I baked chocolate-chip cookies from scratch, I found that I could tell when they were done by checking their texture when they came out of the oven. Baking cookies was a huge confidence booster for me!

After I completed the training program at LCB, I knew that the cooking skills and dishes my dad had taught me would not disappear. I could continue to share those dishes with my family.
My passion for cooking grew as I began working as an instructor in daily living skills and when I became a parent. My child is now five, and she is also blind. Already I have begun getting my kid to help in the kitchen. Right now her jobs are to pour ingredients, throw away trash, mix stuff together, and cut up fruit if needed. My goal is for her to feel comfortable in the kitchen, for the kitchen to be the heart of the home. I want her never to know the feeling that the kitchen is a strange and scary place because it's unfamiliar to her. I want us to share the bond that I once had with my own father.

Cooking has become more than just a hobby for me. It is a way for me to connect with others, preserve traditions, and create lasting memories.

Monitor Miniatures

News from the Federation Family 

Don’t Break the Budget

Hi. I am Adam Rushforth, a proud winner of a National Federation of the Blind Scholarship in 2001 and a tenBroek Scholarship in 2003. I have invented a game in which Monitor readers may be interested: “Don’t Break the Budget.”

• Play to teach budgeting principles that stick for children, teens, and adults.
• Perfect for family game nights, homeschooling, or financial literacy classes.

Tired of those snooze-worthy budgeting lectures? Bid farewell to boredom, and say hello to fun with the "Don’t Break the Budget" card game! Prepare to outsmart, outwit, and out-budget your opponents.

This wacky budgeting game combines the fun of an interactive card game with learning crucial money-management skills. The goal is to successfully build your budget before anyone else does. Budget breakers, lost jobs, or unexpected expenses are just some of the roadblocks you can place on your opponents. Whether played in a classroom, during family game night, or among friends, this is a competitive and fun way to learn key principles for creating a budget. This game can be played by two, three, or four players at a time. Game duration: twenty minutes. Ages eight plus.

To place an order, simply visit the website at dontbreakthebudget.com or go directly to the order form by clicking on this link: Dontbreakthebudget.com/payment .

Please be sure to include in the note section that you wish to receive a Braille copy of the game.

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.

Sonos Seeking Blind Beta Testers

Sonos is a company that produces high-quality audio products, such as speakers and other components, that connect to the internet and each other through home Wi-Fi networks. Many blind people have been enthusiastic users of its products over the years because the company maintained high standards of accessibility. With the recent redesign of the smartphone app that is used to control a user’s devices, there was a severe degradation of screen-reader accessibility. Sonos has since acknowledged the issue and reached out to the National Federation of the Blind to ask for our help in recruiting blind beta testers for future iterations of the app. Since the company says that it will be rolling out accessibility improvements through the end of June, signing up right away will likely be the best way to test these improvements and provide feedback. If you are a Sonos user and would like to participate in its beta program, here is the link to sign up: https://beta.sonos.com/key/passport .

We anticipate that a future Monitor and other Federation communications will contain more information on our advocacy with Sonos.

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.