Mark Riccobono:
Greetings fellow Federationists. Today is Tuesday, April 30, 2025, and this is presidential release number 549. We are quickly moving into the month of May and our national convention will be here before we know it, I want to encourage each and every one of you to register for our national convention, make your hotel reservations. The rooms are quickly being gathered up and locked down at the Marriott, but there still are some available right at this moment. Plenty of rooms also at the Sheraton, and you may say, well, I'm not planning to be with the Federation in New Orleans in July because of this or that reason.
But you can still up until the convention, actually even during the convention, but do it early, you can register to be part of the virtual convention experience and you should because being involved with the convention, our annual meeting, our time of coming together and focusing our energy on the influence that the organized blind movement should have in all parts of society, we need you to be part of that.
So please make your plans to be with us in New Orleans, but if you can't please register and be part of our virtual convention experience. Again, all of that information, nfb.org/convention, you want to make sure you get your registration done by May 30 if you can, especially if you're attending the convention. Now for this month, I want to talk to our chapters about the influence that the chapters can have on the policies of the National Federation of the Blind at our national level.
Our work always starts at the local level. Many of the best ideas in the Federation started from conversations at the local level and often times the national policies that we establish at the convention started from the community discussion that happened at a local chapter meeting and then people reaching out throughout the affiliate and networking with people from other states and finding that there's a commonality here that we should work on and make a policy priority of.
Policy decisions of the Federation come about from blind people working with each other, debating, discussing what is important and then synthesizing that into what we should do about it and how we can change society. And the only way we can determine whether something really has an impact on more than one blind person is by working with other blind people to see if there is a systemic issue to work on. Now, one way, it's not the only way, but one way we come up with solutions to those problems and how we work on those priorities is through our resolutions process at the national convention.
And often a resolution does start from local conversations. I would say a resolution is not the best way to get a conversation started necessarily, but sometimes that's the way it happens. A lot of times those conversations happen in local chapter meetings and members discussing, here's an idea of how we can deal with something.
Okay, let's reach out and talk to other folks about that. And when we find that there's a need to work on a problem and there's commonality across states and different blind people, we find that it's important to have our national organization take this up as a priority, and that happens through our resolutions process. And so these two months, not the only months of the year that we should be talking about this in chapters, but excellent two months to definitely be talking about policies because the timeline is running short for getting a resolution into our consideration for the 2025 convention.
Our resolutions' committee at the national level is chaired by Donald Porterfield of Arizona, and this year the deadline for submitting resolutions to the committee to be considered at the convention is June 8. So our May chapter meeting is a great time to be having this conversation.
Now, if you have questions about resolutions or want to submit a resolution, you can send that to resolutions, plural, [email protected], and you can get to Donald that way. You can also reach him via telephone if you want to discuss resolution ideas. Chapters should be having these discussions and thinking about policies. Even if you are not coming to the convention, hopefully at least one person from your chapter is coming to the convention, maybe the chapter president, but maybe there are many people from the chapter coming and you should be discussing what their priorities should be from the perspective of the local chapter. One way to spark that discussion is to consider some material that's been in the Braille monitor. I want to call your attention to an article in the April 2025 Braille Monitor by Gary Wunder as a good discussion point for what policies we want to see in the National Federation of the Blind.
Gary's article was entitled, "How Do We Make Real and Lasting Changes for the Blind, a Discussion that Needs Your Input". I'd emphasize that last part, your input. This article proposes a way of thinking about how we create change and how we do that within the National Federation of the Blind, and how we sometimes have to debate and push and pull each other and consider what's the right method for getting something done. This article's a good starting point for discussion in the chapter about what our priorities should be leading up to the convention.
Collective action is always a focal point for us at our national convention, and this year we've adopted it as a theme because there is a great need. More than sometimes in our history, there is a great need today for emphasizing collective action amongst blind people, especially as we're encountering already this year a number of policy decisions and efforts in not just the federal government, but also state and local governments attacks on programs for the blind and threats to real fundamental laws that we've relied on.
As a matter of fact, just today the United States Supreme Court is hearing briefings in a case that could have significant ramifications for students with disabilities in local school districts. The way that we get society to pay attention to what's important to us as a community of blind people is by organizing together and building the vehicle that we have for collective action. And that starts by discussion at the local level. So use this as an opportunity to talk about what's important and to equip members coming to the convention with those ideas.
Looking forward to being together with many of you at our convention in New Orleans to build our collective action even further. Now, before we get there, I also want to share with you that we're going to be launching our spring fundraising drive and this year it has a couple of different twists to it.
This is what we call our Lead and Drive for the Give 25 in ‘25 Campaign. We want to drive change for blind people across the nation and our Give 25 fuels our progress and powers the work that we do as an organization. Let me talk to you about the campaign this year and some new elements to it. During the spring, launching later in May, you will have an opportunity to give 25 dollars or to encourage others to give 25 dollars or increments of 25 dollars to support the work of the National Federation of the Blind, but you will also have a chance if you give 25 dollars or different increments of 25 dollars, you will have a chance or multiple chances to win a trip to the 2026 National Convention in Austin, Texas. Or if for some reason you don't want to accept that, you can also accept a cash prize.
So by giving to the Federation, you also may get something very tangible in return, in addition to the intangible benefits you get from being part of the organized blind movement. This year, we are also encouraging a little friendly competition by tracking what we call our Federation challengers, people who go out and get other people to give to the organization. Anybody who asks others to give can be a Federation Challenger.
Donors can name their Federation Challenger on the Give 25 donation page, and the Challenger who brings in the most donations will be given an opportunity to announce the winner of the grand prize drawing for this program during the banquet at the convention. You might say, "Well, interesting, but I can't be at the convention." Well, you can still be chosen as the one to announce the winner through the magic of Zoom and our great AV system.
As a bonus this year, we heard from many of you who could not be at the convention who were disappointed that although you gave money, you couldn't get the Aftershocks headphones. So for the first 100 individuals who give 100 dollars or more to this drive will receive a pair of Aftershocks headphones and you'll be able to pick those up at the convention. But if for some reason you can't pick them up at the convention, we will ship them to you. So that's if you're one of the first 100 people to give a hundred dollars or more.
You can support the National Federation of the Blind by giving or by encouraging others to give. And in this springtime, these dollars are very important and you should know that these dollars will also be matched thanks to a gift from an anonymous donor. The first 25,000 dollars that we raise will be matched dollar for dollar with a gift from our anonymous donors.
So every dollar will be 2 dollars in reality to the work of the organized Blind movement. And you can best promote this by sharing your story, your involvement in the National Federation of the Blind, why it makes a difference to you in living the life you want. Now there are three ways to give. You can call our main number, 410-659-9314 and dial extension 2430. You can mail your check into the Federation at 200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, or you can donate online by going to our page at nfb.org/give25donate, all one word, give25donate. I'd encourage you to get involved with this and encourage others too. It's an important time to bring dollars into the organization so we can continue our drive to build a vehicle for collective action by the blind and to influence what's happening in society.
I do have a few Federation family notes to share with you on this release. From Pennsylvania I regret to have to inform you of the passing of former First Vice President of the Philadelphia chapter, Stanley Ingram. Stanley had been battling health issues for a number of years but was always an active contributor to the Federation whenever he could. He was a longtime contributor to the chapter and was a former recipient of a Federation scholarship.
From Utah, Everett Bacon shares the news of the passing of Kaiser Teo, who is a long-time member of the Weber Davis Chapter and served as a board member and part of that chapter, Kaiser was a good friend to all he met and will definitely be missed in the Federation community. From Florida we've learned of the passing of Aileen Jasper, who was a long-time member of the Palm Beach Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Florida.
From Minnesota many, many people wrote to me to inform me of the sad news of the passing of Bonnie Herman, who was a very energetic member of our Minnesota affiliate and who was described as one of the most enthusiastic members supporting the Senior Division of the National Federation of the Blind. And Bonnie, well into her nineties, promoted the work of the Federation because she understood the difference it made to her and to others. And she took full advantage of the senior retreats offered by our national division and she will definitely be missed in our Minnesota affiliate.
I would urge you to keep all of these individuals and those I might not have been aware of in your thoughts and prayers as we come to the end of this presidential release for the month of May. We will be at the National Convention very shortly. I know these last two months leading up to the convention are going to go quickly.
I hope that you are enjoying a great spring wherever you are hearing this message and that you are making your plans to be with us at the convention in July. I do have a few customary endings before we end this release and they go like this. Why are oak trees so forgiving? Well, it's because every May they turn over a new leaf. And what is May's favorite genre of music? Well, that would be heavy petals, of course. And finally, why don't monkeys fall from the sky during the month of May? Well, because that happens during the April showers.
Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind and may the fourth be with you.
Speaker 1:
The preceding message was brought to you by Mark Riccobono, president National Federation of the Blind, 410-659-9314. [email protected]. Follow President Riccobono on Mastodon. Just search for @[email protected]. Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.