American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Future Reflections Convention Issue 2023 AWARDS
The Sixteenth Annual Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards
Presented by Everette Bacon
Everette Bacon: We have an outstanding presentation for you that I'm really excited to give. This is the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards. This is the sixteenth year. And we have now given away seventy-five Jacob Bolotin Awards. Can you believe that? After today, we will be up to eighty-one. So, we are inching closer to giving away one hundred Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards, which is pretty fabulous! Awesome, right?
I don't know how many people here have read the book The Blind Doctor. It's the outstanding story of a man who persevered through so many trials and tribulations to get to where he wanted to go. He did that before there was a Federation. You can read how he grew up as a blind person, and the trials he went through. There's a little romance in there, you get to read about his wife and family. I like to point out that when he was in college, back in the early 1900s, he faced the same types of adversities that we face going to college today. He had teachers who doubted him. It is an inspiration to college students of today to understand that we have been traveling this pathway, and people like Dr. Bolotin started it. And we have been doing it for years and years. We are going to continue to travel this pathway, and break the barriers and beat down the doors.
I want to thank the previous chairpersons, Gary Wunder and Jim Gashel, who have come before me. I also want to thank our current committee members in no particular order: Dr. Natalie Shaheen, who couldn't be here with us today; Ms. Mary Ellen Jernigan; Donald Porterfield; Steve Jacobsen; and board-elect member Jessica Beecham.
Let's get to the presentation. We have an 8-1/2-minute video we are going to play for you now. Let's go ahead and queue that up.
Speaker: Federation guests, the National Federation of the Blind is proud to introduce the 2023 recipients of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards, made possible in part by the generous support of the Alfred and Rosalind Perlman Trust and the Santa Barbara Foundation. These individuals and organizations have broken down barriers faced by blind people in innovative ways, changed negative perceptions of blindness and blind people, and pushed past existing boundaries to inspire blind people to achieve new heights. The first of our three individual winners is Peggy Chong, The Blind History Lady, receiving her second Bolotin Award to fund an ambitious project.
Peggy Chong: I think it is really important for professionals and social workers to know the history of the disabled, not just our eye disease, not just when laws were passed, but the successful people who made it in the world. Blind people have been US Senators, bankers, and crooks, you know? Murderers! They should know that we are a cross-section of society, and that we aren't the first to try something, so that we don't always feel like we need to reinvent the wheel every time we turn around.
Speaker: Sharon Maneki, with over thirty years of advancing technology for the National Federation of the Blind.
Sharon Maneki: Dr. Bolotin's service is the blind living. That's the very purpose of life. I think that's what he represents.
Speaker: Neil Soiffer, MathCat, Assistive Technology. A free open-source tool that allows software development to make digital math content accessible to screen readers.
Neil Soiffer: The whole goal of MathCat is for vendors to be easily able to incorporate math accessibility into their products. It is open source, it is free, and it has a nice simple interface. I am hoping that the excuse that I heard a lot when I did math, that "math accessibility is hard," that "we will eventually get to it," is no longer an excuse at all. It is not hard! The software does it. It's free, so it doesn't cost much. And it is simple to integrate into products.
Speaker: Accessible Pharmacy Services, for solutions that allow blind people independent control of their healthcare. Here’s co-founder Alex Cohen:
Alex Cohen: This is a full-service healthcare company specializing in medication management and diabetes management for the blind, low-vision, and DeafBlind communities. We find solutions to alleviate and remove any challenges or barriers related to loss of sight or hearing impairments, and we identify each one of our particular patients as an individual and unique patient.
This is our primary service. Accessibility services, working with people with various abilities is not an afterthought, it is our primary service. This year our Jacob Bolotin Award is validation that we are headed in the right direction. But we also understand that we are not done. Accessibility and inclusion is a moving target and a continual effort. We could not be more honored to receive this award at Accessible Pharmacy Services. It shows that we are on the right track.
Speaker: AstroAccess. Here's Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen.
Sheri Wells-Jensen: We know what is happening. Blind people will not be left behind. This is all about doing the research that we need to do. We are all about figuring out what we need to change, both in the governmental space program and the increasing number of private space programs. What do we need to do to get blind people in line to go like everybody else?
Speaker: The National Federation of the Blind of Texas is receiving its second Bolotin Award for Project BOLD. Here's affiliate President Norma Crosby.
Norma Crosby: Project BOLD is an opportunity for blind children and their families, including sighted siblings. It is a project that we took on from the Texas Wildlife Department. We asked children and families to apply to be part of the program. As I said earlier, we not only invited blind children, but their families. We wanted to teach the sighted siblings how to be better allies for their blind siblings. So as the name says, Blindness Outdoor Learning and Development is just as the name BOLD says. We take children outside to do fire building, tent building and philosophy about blindness. We teach our children and their siblings in a pod, as a pod. All of the instructors in the program are blind adults.
Speaker: Each of these winners will receive a trophy and a monetary prize to advance their work to help blind people live the lives we want. Now, the National Federation of the Blind proudly presents them with their 2023 Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards.
Mark Riccobono: That is exciting!
Everette Bacon: When I call your name and talk about your particular program, I want you to come up, and we will hand you an award. So our first one—I thought I would do this one first, because I kind of wanted the loud applause right away! So let's go with the NFB of Texas, five thousand dollars! This program is called BOLD, Blindness Outdoor Learning and Development. It is basically to help blind families, blind adults, blind children get an opportunity to experience the great state's wildlife services and the great state's parks, all in the great State of Texas. Norma Crosby is here to accept the award. Thank you, Norma.
Norma Crosby: Thank you.
Everette Bacon: Our next award winner, Accessible Pharmacy Services. This program provides fully accessible home delivery pharmaceutical services. Lynn Heitz from Pennsylvania nominated them. And Lynn Heitz said simply that before this service, blind people were left out by pharmaceutical services. They didn't understand the needs that blind people had. This service has now broken down those barriers for us to get our accessible pharmacy services. Thank you, Andy Burstein.
Andy Burstein: Thank you.
Then the next award—I'm excited about this one. This is really fun to learn about. AstroAccess. I want to read their motto to you. "If we can make space accessible, we can make any space accessible." Don't you love that? I was reading about this program and some of the great things they do. We have two blind astronauts up on stage right now. Danielle Montour and Lindsay Yazzolino. They are blind astronauts, and they have experienced zero gravity. I have not experienced zero gravity. Danielle was telling me she had an opportunity to go into the rocket and be able to create an accessible tactile map for the sighted people when the lights go out, so they can find their way. I thought that was really awesome. So, I'm really proud of AstroAccess. Danielle and Lindsay are here to accept the awards, five thousand dollars to them as well. Here you go!
Now to the individual awards. The first individual award, for five thousand dollars, goes to—I like to refer to her as OUR Blind History Lady, Peggy Chong. Peggy Chong has previously won the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award for her work in the Blind History Lady Program she directs. But this is a special project that she is doing. She will be going to Washington, DC to go into the Library of Congress to review documents related to the Harmon Foundation. The Harmon Foundation gave awards in the 1920s and 1930s to the Black workers who were in the shops making all sorts of things, and then the program stopped. She is looking into why they stopped, and she will figure out who won the awards. I've got a sneaking suspicion that after she does her research and finds out what she finds out, that this will have a space in the Museum of the Blind People's Movement. So thank you, Peggy Chong!
Our next winner is not here today to receive her trophy, but I know she's listening on Zoom. Sharon Maneki! Sharon Maneki was the longtime President of the NFB for Maryland. Ronza Othman nominated her for this award. I like to think of Sharon as a policy wonk before there was such a thing as a policy wonk. Ronza said that no other leader in any state has done more to advance legislation in a particular state like Sharon Maneki has. I will name three, but I counted fifteen listed on Ronza's application. Three stand out to me.
Maryland was one of the very first states to get a Parental Bill of Rights for the Blind. It was one of the first states to require Braille certification for teachers of blind students. And it was one of the very first states to require accessible textbooks, not only for K-12 students, but for K-Ph.D. She did it for both! We will make sure Sharon gets the award. She's also a five thousand-dollar winner.
Our last and final award winner, Dr. Neil Soiffer, is going to win twenty-five thousand dollars. Dr. Neil created an open-source tool to allow individuals to access math using software and tools for their screen reader. There's nothing else like it. And guess what? It is free! It is free to you. You can use it right now. This is an awesome service! We feel this is just what Dr. Jacob Bolotin speaks to. I'm going to let him speak.
Neil Soiffer: Please bear with me, I will make this as brief as I can. Before hearing about this award, I didn't know about Dr. Bolotin. I read his book, and I will never match his accomplishments, but we do share one thing. We have the same birthday! So, I'll have that. Thankfully, not the same birth year, so I am not that old. But I want to thank Dr. John Gardner, who twenty years ago asked me to help him make some software accessible so he could continue research after becoming blind. That ask has given me purpose in my life. It might surprise some people, but there are people who think that math is fun. I'm one of them! And for those who don't like math, it's likely because you weren't taught about what math really is. I could go on and on about that for many hours, but I don't think that's what you want to hear about today.
I just want to say that I want to make the joy of math accessible to everyone, and I will continue to do so for as long as I can. Thank you so much for the recognition. Perhaps this gives hope to other math nerds that they too someday will be appreciated.
Everette Bacon: Thank you again. Don't forget your award! All right, that's it. Those are our six winners. They are pretty awesome, aren't they?
Thank you again to the Perlman Trust. Mr. President, that's my report.