Intro [male voice over music]: Welcome to the Nation's Blind Podcast presented by the National Federation of the Blind, the transformative membership and advocacy organization of blind Americans. Live the life you want!
Melissa Riccobono: Hello and welcome to the Nation's Blind Podcast. I'm Melissa Riccobono, and I am here with my co-host-
Anil Lewis: Anil Lewis. It's so interesting, we haven't done this in so long. I'm glad you remember how we get this thing started. [Laughter]
Melissa Riccobono: I was thinking the same thing. Oh my goodness. It's been a minute. How have you been Anil? It seems like you've been back and forth and forth and back and-
Anil Lewis: I've been traveling. Traveling. The Federation demands it of me. If I was younger, I'd enjoy it more, but I do enjoy it.
Melissa Riccobono [Laughing]: Well, that's good. More. More is, yeah, you'd enjoy it more, but you still enjoy that-
Anil Lewis: Exactly, I enjoy it.
Melissa Riccobono: That's great.
Anil Lewis: Exactly.
Melissa Riccobono: Well, I am so excited because we have two lovely ladies that are going to be with us today and we are going to have a conversation, which I love. I love our producer, Chris Danielsen, for always reminding us before we start, this is a conversation. This isn't, I don't want to say it's not polished because hopefully we bring you a good product, but this is much more a-
Anil Lewis: It is more off the cuff than most people would believe. We just make it look professionally executed. [Laughter]
Melissa Riccobono: Absolutely correct. But we do want to make it be a conversation because who wants to be preached at? Well, I mean unless you're in church, in which case that's a whole different thing.
Anil Lewis: Well, even in church, you don't want to be preached at.
Melissa Riccobono: Right! You want to be preached with. That's true. Yeah, absolutely. That's a whole other podcast. [Laughter] Wow. Sorry, I'm really getting us in the weeds right now.
Anil Lewis: It's been a while.
Melissa Riccobono: It has.
Anil Lewis: We got to get focused.
Melissa Riccobono: Anyway, yeah-
Anil Lewis: We got to get focused.
Melissa Riccobono: Will, you have your work cut out for you!
Anil Lewis: Oh, one correction. One correction. You said two lovely ladies, you're on the podcast too. So that's three lovely ladies.
Melissa Riccobono: Thank you. And a very handsome gentleman, but we're the-
Anil Lewis: Thank you.
Melissa Riccobono: ... people that are usually here. I meant two additional lovely ladies.
Anil Lewis: Got it, got it.
Melissa Riccobono: And they're both southern lovely ladies, which I know is near-
Anil Lewis: Oh that's a plus.
Melissa Riccobono: ... near and dear to your heart Anil being from Georgia-
Anil Lewis: Absolutely.
Melissa Riccobono: ... and all. So I don't know, you want these lovely ladies to introduce themselves and then we can kind of get into our topic?
Anil Lewis: It would probably help our listeners to know who they are. So yes.
Melissa Riccobono: I think so. So let's see. Why don't we start with Cindy and we'll go to Stacie.
Cindy Scott-Huisman: Hi, I am Cindy Scott-Huisman [HOUSE-man] from Little Rock, Arkansas.
Melissa Riccobono: Excellent. How are you today?
Cindy Scott-Huisman: Doing great.
Melissa Riccobono: Great, excellent. And what are your roles in Arkansas?
Cindy Scott-Huisman: I'm on the board of the Central Arkansas chapter and also on the state affiliate board here in Arkansas, and I joined NFB in 2020.
Melissa Riccobono: Wow, so you're new-ish. Not super new, but new-ish. Gosh, like three years ago. That's ridiculous. And what do you do for your day job?
Cindy Scott-Huisman: Oh, I own an art gallery and we do custom picture framing, and I enjoy doing all of the publicity and the behind-the-scenes business aspect to running a small business. We celebrated fifty-three years this year.
Anil Lewis: Oh wow. Congratulations.
Melissa Riccobono: Wow. Thank you. That is amazing. All right, let's move on to Stacie then.
Stacie Gallegos: Good afternoon everybody. My name is Stacie Gallegos and I have the honor and privilege of serving as the president of the Houston Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Texas. I m also very actively involved in our affiliate and do many different things. I'm one of the BELL instructors in our BELL Academy and on our Silver Bells instructor team with our older blind folks and my husband Raul and I, we own and operate our small business, RGA Tech Solutions, where we are assistive technology trainers. And in our spare time, or my spare time when I have spare time and not doing Federation work, I like to spend my efforts trying to get the Patriots back in order. They're in a, I tell people they're in a never-ending era of reconstruct.
Melissa Riccobono: It's kind of in disarray. So are my Packers though, so it's okay. It's all right. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, both of you and Cindy, you kind of sold yourself short in one way. You were the president of your chapter for a while, correct?
Cindy Scott-Huisman: I have been the Central Chapter president for the past three years. We just had elections on Saturday and I was so excited to welcome in new leaders of our chapter, which pretty much changed out all of the leadership, and it was something I had been working on for the past several months. And I did attend leadership training seminar just recently there in Baltimore and really, really enjoyed that. Got a lot out of it.
Anil Lewis: She is a Twisted Pilot.
Cindy Scott-Huisman: Yes.
Anil Lewis: The Twisted Pilot Seminarians, yes.
Melissa Riccobono:
Fantastic. Excellent. So we are here to talk about Blind Equality Achievement Month, otherwise #BlindMonth is another way to put it.
Don't know if I should even put this out there. It used to be Meet the Blind Month, but now we've rebranded it to Blind Equality Achievement Month. And so I guess to get started, we should maybe just talk a little bit about what Blind Equality Achievement Month means to all of us. Sort of why it is that we feel it's important to educate the public along with of course trying to bring in new members for the National Federation of the Blind. That's always our goal, but this month is really about reaching out beyond ourselves to educate the public about blindness as much as we can. And then I'd love it, Stacie and Cindy, if you guys could talk about a little what you have done personally, what your chapters have done, what sort of Blind Equality Achievement Month opportunities you've been involved with.
Cindy Scott-Huisman: Yeah. When I joined the NFB in 2020, we had this thing going on called a pandemic.
Anil Lewis: That old thing.
Cindy Scott-Huisman: Yeah, that little thing. I've been champing at the bit for the past several years for our chapter to get into the position of being able to do more in our community. And so really we're totally up and running at this point and several of our chapter members were present at a White Cane Day event held on the campus of World Services for the Blind on Friday the 13th. And also our chapter has reserved a booth at a community event in historic Hillcrest, Arkansas. It's a really cool neighborhood and the event's been going almost 30 years now. It always takes place the end of October. So October 28th, we will be set up with our brochures and a little bit of fundraising. It'll be a icebreaker money maker and we're going to encourage folks from our School for the Blind and other area services, anybody we can think of, to come out and take part in the event and have a good time together.
Melissa Riccobono: I love that icebreaker moneymaker. I'm going to have to steal that. That's amazing. Stacie, how about you?
Stacie Gallegos: So as I mentioned earlier, I serve as the president of our Houston chapter. I'm in my fourth term and in the past we have gone out and done volunteer activities at the local food bank.
Anil Lewis: Nice.
Stacie Gallegos: I'm big into getting out and helping others. I think it's important that society see that blind people can be out lending a helping hand instead of what was once thought that blind people just take. So it's really important to me that we're out and about and making that happen. Oddly enough, this month, to illustrate how we live the lives we want, our chapter is going to go sailing on Saturday, so I've been in the midst of organizing a sailing trip with a local nonprofit organization here called Sailing Angels Foundation. They provide sailing opportunities for people with disabilities, wounded veterans, women who are survivors of domestic violence. And so we're a group of us. About twenty-five of us are going to go out on Saturday and do that.
Anil Lewis: You should tell President Riccobono, he loves to sail. He loves sailing.
Melissa Riccobono: He does. He loves to sail. In fact, one of our first dates was on a sailboat.
Anil Lewis: Aw.
Stacie Gallegos: Oh that's so cool. I know this summer with our national convention, things were so jam packed. If you guys ever come back to Texas, we'll have to get a trip organized-
Melissa Riccobono: That'd be amazing.
Anil Lewis: Very nice.
Stacie Gallegos: But that's what we're doing. And of course, Blindness Equality Achievement Month. I definitely think it's important to have a month to spread awareness, but I feel very strongly that blind individuals, we are striving for equality every day of the year.
Anil Lewis: What? You don't think one month is enough? [Laughter]
Stacie Gallegos: No, I'm greedy. I'm greedy.
Melissa Riccobono: Remain hungry.
Stacie Gallegos: I'm greedy.
Melissa Riccobono: It's okay.
Anil Lewis: Yes, yes.
Stacie Gallegos: Yeah, yeah. And then it takes a village. We've heard the saying it takes a village to spread awareness. All blind people, blind at heart people need to get involved and help spread the word about what we are able to do. And even if you don't think we can do something, find somebody and they'll show you that it can be done.
Anil Lewis: And I wholeheartedly agree with you, we're not going to try to get it all done in a month, but it is helpful to have October as Blind Equality Achievement Month because it gets people really tunnel-vision focused on that. And hopefully we can create a groundswell that sustains that initiative and that effort throughout the whole year. But it's nice to have that little concentrated effort because then we also get exposed to all these different ideas that we can replicate throughout the year, like the icebreaker moneymaker, those types of things. So I think there's a lot of benefit to really focus a lot of time and attention during this thirty-one-day period and hopefully like you say, it's something that carries on throughout the whole year.
Stacie Gallegos: Absolutely.
Melissa Riccobono: I love that these two events are different. We have Cindy talking about the White Cane Day event and that's so important. And I think Stacie, before we started recording, said that her chapter does some kind of white cane awareness as well, which is super important. And yet also you're talking about being out in the community, being in a food bank, doing the things that other people might not expect blind people to do. And I think that's just the beauty of it this month can really mean what you want it to mean. I think so often people look at it and say, "Oh, it's just this other month, is this on the calendar?" But it really can be whatever it is you want it to be and you can make it very personal to you.
And maybe it's that you decide to, I don't know, volunteer for something you've never done before or whatever it is. It can be as small or as big, if you have a chapter and other people behind you, as you want it to be. I think the other really important part about it and the part that I think gets overlooked sometimes, it's really a way for society to understand that blind people are here. And I think it does increase the contact that we get from schools, from colleges, from businesses because they see on the calendar, "Oh, it's Blind Equality Achievement Month," or even, "Oh, it's Disability Awareness Month. We should really do something for that.
And so it does give us kind of a unique opportunity that maybe we would have, but maybe we wouldn't. I think sometimes there's schools and things that are looking at their calendar and specifically want us to come because they see it's sort of our month on the calendar. And that's sort of nice because we don't get ignored in that hullabaloo of all the other things that are calling for our attention. So that's just my opinion. I don't know. Take it for what it's worth.
Cindy Scott-Huisman: I love how the timing coincides with the partnership with HumanWare for that doubling or tripling the money. That really just fits in perfectly with us having #BlindMonth and being able to tell people about what we're up to and then it ties in so perfectly with that fundraising opportunity as well.
Anil Lewis: That's a very good point. And there are synergies all around. Melissa mentioned that this is Disability Awareness Month, it's also Disability Employment Month. We talked about White Cane Safety Day on the 15th, all of that. This is the month to really be up top. And again, we're going to have to leverage this opportunity to make sure that we have some energy that we can sustain throughout the year. What are some of the other kind of community-based activities that you guys engage in?
Melissa Riccobono: Or have engaged in the past?
Anil Lewis: I love the food bank thing.
Stacie Gallegos: Well, here in Houston, as I mentioned, and it may have been before you came on Anil, Houston, it has a smorgasbord of blindness groups. We do have a presence obviously with our two main consumer organizations, the National Federation of the Blind, and our American Council of the Blind, but we have other groups here in Houston. Their focus is more on the social aspect of things. So getting together, doing social outings, going out to eat. Everybody likes to have food.
So a lot of our groups will do social activities. We have people that are doing training sessions. So Raul and I belong to, I kind of equate it to the United Nations of blind people or low-vision people, if you will. Houston Area Visually Impaired Network. And this is where each group, the National Federation of the Blind being one of the organizations, has a representative that serves on the board. And so we really got this started during the pandemic of providing Zoom workshops every month on a focused topic. So when the pandemic first started, everybody was so worried about how on earth were they going to get their hair cut.
So we actually had a virtual grooming workshop on how blind people could cut their hair. So there's a lot of different things from having training workshops to doing social activities. Some groups have book clubs that meet. Our calendar is filled that we don't participate in all of these things, but there is something for everybody here it seems. So obviously the National Federation of the Blind, when I tell people who we are, I let them know that we're a civil rights movement of blind people with our focus being on advocating with all blind people so we can have equal access.
Anil Lewis: But we like to have fun too.
Melissa Riccobono: We do.
Anil Lewis: And we can party. We can party with the best of them. Yes.
Melissa Riccobono: We do. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely we can. But we are here to make things better so the people coming up behind us can have different battles to just help continue the motion forward.
Anil Lewis: I love the reality and the statement you just made, not we do it so that they won't have to fight these struggles. Yeah, you're right. They're going to have different struggles, different battles to fight. You're right about that. Yes.
Melissa Riccobono: Yep.
Anil Lewis: What about you, Cindy? Any community-based activities?
Cindy Scott-Huisman: This is more on a personal note. Just the other day, the Clinton Library hosted a documentary screening of a film that is called Join or Die. And just reading what it was going to be about really enticed me and I signed up, it's about a guy who wrote the book Bowling Alone, and he's done all of this research on how our communities, we used to all join these different organizations and clubs, the earlier generations in our country did. And at this point, there's a decline in, you name it, every type of joining is down and how that's affecting our health.
And it was just very empowering to show up by myself. I made a reservation for two, I didn't find anybody to go with me. So I went alone and I went right up to the front and sat down and talked to the two documentarians afterwards to ask them when it was going to be released to the public, would there be audio description added? Because I said "I noticed that several times during the screening, the audience was reacting to the visuals and I'd like to know more about what was happening there." But they responded well to that. And there was a panel discussion at the Clinton Library that evening with Secretary Hillary Clinton, the author of the book, the documentarians. And it was just fascinating to hear more about this concept of Join or Die.
Anil Lewis: Yeah. That's very nice.
Melissa Riccobono: Wow.
Cindy Scott-Huisman: I felt really good about being there and representing; one of my chapter members said, "You're representing the NFB. I'm so glad you can be there."
Anil Lewis: And that's true. That's really important when you see blind people out there engaging in society in a real way, all of a sudden we're not outliers, we're in their space. They learn that we're just as interested in these events as anyone else and have ability to contribute and add value to that experience as well.
Melissa Riccobono: Yes. Right. And especially because you now then talk to the documentarians about audio description. That really will hopefully impact and make a difference. That's really cool. For myself, this Friday, President Riccobono and I are taking our thirteen-year-old, Oriana, to the Taylor Swift movie, and oh my goodness, she is such a Swiftie, she's so excited. She's going to make us friendship bracelets. It is the whole deal. And actually Mark said it greatly yesterday, because she said, "Yeah, I'm going to make friendship bracelets." And Mark said, because I guess Taylor makes these or somehow they are made and they're passed out. I don't know much about this whole thing, but from what I understand it, these friendship bracelets are made and then you can pass them to other people. And Mark said, "I'm just going to pass this to another dad that's there with his child, and I'm just going to say, 'You're my friend dad.-
Cindy Scott-Huisman: Oh that's cool.
Melissa Riccobono: ... You and I are friends because we're both dads and we're both here.'" And I think just things like that. We can't overstate that because sometimes, and Cindy, I know you have a great story about this, but sometimes people only see us as blind people. And so to me, Blind Equality Achievement Month is a way to really not just, and I love that your chapter member said you're representing the NFB and you were, but you're also representing yourself and just living the life that you wanted. And so I think that whole push and pull between when we can just be ourselves, do we always have to educate? How does that all work? But I know sometimes that's really difficult and people kind of put us in these boxes. So Cindy, I don't know if you want to tell your story that you were sharing about that experience that you've had recently.
Cindy Scott-Huisman: Right, because I experienced sight loss at a later point in my life. Then when I reconnected with a friend from college more recently, and it seemed at some point that he didn't really want to visit about anything other than blindness-related topics. So he would send me articles and any of our interchanges had to do with blindness. And I eventually said something to him about That's not my single identity at this point, that I still have a full life that I'm living in multitudes of ways. And so I don't know if that put him off or not, but sometimes you just kind of have to get somebody's attention and help them realize that that is something that's going on in my life, but it's not the only thing.
Anil Lewis: The only defining factor. Yes. [Laughter]
Melissa Riccobono: Your only characteristic, all you are is blind. You're not a woman, you're not a business owner, you're not from Arkansas, you're not... You're just blind.
Anil Lewis: That's a good filter though. You know how far that relationship should go right there. You got a good barometer in that. But to pivot on the other side, just like Melissa said, your friends said you're representing the NFB, but in many instances we're also representing every blind person. What we do unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how we deal with it, is going to impact the way that person interacts with the next blind person they see as though we're all monolithic, right? We're not individuals and different individuals and we have somewhat of an obligation to try our best to educate them, to understand so that we can be received as fully participating equal members of society. But where does that line get drawn? Because I just really want to know when I have a bad day, do I have permission to not educate? [Laughter] Where do you guys think the line gets drawn?
Cindy Scott-Huisman: You're the ambassador of blind people.
Anil Lewis: Every day? Twenty-four hours a day? Go ahead, Stacie. I hear you. Trying to get in there.
Stacie Gallegos: For me personally, and anytime I give a presentation, I always let people know that I am not representing every single blind person that you may come in contact with. Every blind person is their own individual. We may share the same disability, some of us may share the same eye condition, but we're all our own individuals. And the thing that I have to remind myself of is when I leave this house, I could very well be the first and only blind person that the people I come in contact with have met or will ever meet. I'd like to think that that's not the case, but there have been times that that could very well be the case. It's kind of like a balancing act. You want to make sure that you're doing your part to eradicate any misconceptions that people might have of blind people, but you also don't want to scare them away.
There have been times if people ask a question and I am not comfortable answering it, I can just politely say "You know, I'm not comfortable answering that." But I have to remind myself this might be that golden opportunity to erase some misconceptions that these people have had. I want to bring up real quick a story. We took my mother-in-Law last week to Niagara Falls to celebrate her seventieth birthday. That's what she wanted to do. She's always wanted to go there. And it was a phenomenal experience.
Anil Lewis: That's beautiful.
Stacie Gallegos: And we were standing at the falls and if anybody says that a blind person cannot get anything out of Niagara Falls, I'm here to tell you, think again, because it is a phenomenal multisensory experience that everybody can enjoy. And without even, I didn't have a sign saying, "Oh, I'm blind. Come let me talk to you about blind people in Niagara Falls."
There was another tourist there, and they came up to me and they said, "Is it okay if I ask you a question?" And I said, "Sure." And he said, "Well, are you really able to get something out of this experience? You're not able to see it. How much of this are you really able to get?" And I said, "Oh, let me tell you." I said, "I don't discount that your experience of this as a sighted person is magnificent." I said, "But I'm enjoying this just as much as you are and possibly more because I am focusing in on the other elements here, the sound, the smell, the feel of the mist on your skin." So that right there was an educational opportunity for him. Now as the next blind person he's going to come in contact with, if he goes back to Niagara Falls, are they going to say the same thing? Probably not because we're all our own individuals.
Anil Lewis: Yeah, that's a very good point. And I love the way that you showed how in expressing that we can help other individuals experience something even more than they normally would have. Because you're right. Sight in many instances is sometimes more of a distraction and it prohibits people from really engaging in their environment in a multisensory way. So that was nice. But I was speaking to what about if you're there, you had that long day and you're going to Whataburger, that's a big thing in Texas. [Stacie laughs] You've been waiting on this Dr. Pepper milkshake all day, and you finally get in and you sit down at your table and somebody comes over and they want to try to help you put your straw in your milkshake.
Stacie Gallegos: I've got the perfect thing. This is why you need to have bone conduction headphones or Pixel Buds. [Anil laughs] You pop those on your head, ears, whatever, get your buds going-
Anil Lewis: That's leave me alone.
Stacie Gallegos: ... and just tune the world out.
Melissa Riccobono: And that's got to be okay. I always try to be as nice as I can, but I do think that there have to be times, and I love it, Stacie, that you actually will say, "You know what? I'm not comfortable answering that." And I don't think I've ever felt that way. I mean, I'm sorry, I felt that way, but I've never said that. And maybe that's something I need to add to my vocabulary. I grew up Midwest nice. So you answer questions and you're not rude. And it's interesting being with my mom and my mom sees me even just saying no to any help that's offered as coming off as rude.
Stacie Gallegos: Yep. My mom too.
Melissa Riccobono: I think she now understands a little more because I've said, "Would you really want somebody to do things for you that you can do yourself? It's not even..." And sometimes yes, I just let it happen. I just figure, you know what? They want to put that straw in my milkshake so badly. Fine-
Anil Lewis: Yeah pick your battles, pick your battles.
Melissa Riccobono: Knock yourself out I guess. Fine. Now if you want to clean up my kid who is a mess, no, that's my kid. Don't touch. That's I guess everybody has their own boundaries, but things like that, I think it is just really important to figure that out and then to have those snappy comebacks ready. And I think that's really where we as blind people need to help each other. I love President Riccobono's comeback. When people started grabbing his cane, he would just stop and he'd say, "Please take your hands off my eyes." And they would pause and he would be like, "Yes, thank you. That cane. That's how I see. So please don't grab my cane." And he says it nicely, and I have used that. And then people get all offended, but it's like, "No, no, no, you didn't know. It's fine. Now you know. My cane helps me know what's in front of me."
And so that's kind of a different, where we're sort of in control of that narrative. Maybe it sticks and maybe it doesn't, but at least we are able to kind of stand up for ourselves. But I need more and more of those deep breaths in the moment because, and I think Chancey Fleet is brilliant at this. She has a great story about the stanchion at the bottom of the stairs where she works, and this guard wanted to take the stanchion down for her, and at first she was like, "You know what? I've had a long day. Let the guard do it. It's fine." And then she thought, "No, no, no, because there's tons of blind people that are going to come through."
So she said, no, "Thank you. Look, I've got it." And she demonstrated and she said something to the effect of, "If somebody needs help, they'll ask for it, then you can help but figure out what somebody needs." And I think that's the biggest thing that I try to educate people on. I'm not representing every blind person, but the best and safest thing you can always do is ask, "Can I help you find something? Can I help you do this?" But then don't get upset if somebody says, "No, thank you," and back away and feel that they are competent to make that assessment for themselves that no, I really don't need it. Or say, "Okay, I'm here though. If you need me, I'm right here at the next table. And if you do happen to have trouble putting your straw in your milkshake, I'm right here if you need me."
Anil Lewis:
I'll be honest though, I guess that's one of the other benefits of having Blind Equality Achievement Month is because I do double down during October to do that. But when you're out in the public so much, especially people don't believe this, but I truly am an introvert, but when I'm out the public so much, it just wears me out. And sometimes I don't have my earbuds and I didn't have the grace to say, "I don't feel comfortable answering that," and I just go to my base nature. Because I give myself permission to be human, but during October, I really try very hard to exceed the limits of even my tolerance for the misconceptions that we have to face every day.
Melissa Riccobono:
And I think it's really important for all of us to realize that even if we do represent, if we decide to take sighted guide, that's not representing in a bad way, we're all individuals and we should not be taking on... Even though I understand that feeling and I understand it. At the same time, I want us to be careful that it doesn't become the only reason we do this, that or the other, because we feel like we have to. I don't like that at all. There's got to be some gray area where we can decide, you know what? I am exhausted.
For me, my chronic fatigue is completely acting up. I have no brain power left. Yes, I'm going to take your arm. Now, in that case, it's not really even about blindness, but it doesn't matter. Nobody needs to know that; nobody should even question me, and we should not really question each other aside from I guess helping people understand that they do have other options, that they don't have to do it that way. It is all about choice. But once they've gotten that training can actually make that choice, prove like Cindy, that they can go places on their own to do something they really want to do. Then Cindy, if you want to take somebody's arm once in a while, that shouldn't be seen as, "Oh my gosh, that's horrible. You're representing the blind community in such a horrible way."
Cindy Scott-Huisman: Oh yeah.
Stacie Gallegos: I consider that a toolbox.
Melissa Riccobono: Yes.
Stacie Gallegos: And a toolbox has tools and there are different situations for different tools. And the important thing is that you, the individual, are making the informed choice about which tool you're going to use for which situation. I'm a phenomenal traveler. I travel with a cane and a guide dog. This past weekend, we were at our Houston Community White Cane Safety Day celebration. I was one of the lead co-chairs of the event. I had to be everywhere. Could I use my cane to get there quickly? Probably. Did I have my cane to use? Absolutely. But was it more efficient for me to get to the volunteer table real quickly and get back to my spot at the registration table using a sighted guide, human guide? I elected to use that tool because that was the most efficient thing for then, and it did not deplete my independence by no stretch of means.
Anil Lewis: I think that speaks to another kind of peripheral benefit of the Blind Equality Achievement Month as well. We talk about education of the general public, and most of the time we're talking about the sighted general public. But you're right, it's also an opportunity for us to educate blind individuals. I think that there are a lot of people who don't give themselves grace to use whatever tools they find are efficient for them. So it's nice to know because a lot of times our reputation, or really a misrepresentation, of what the National Federation of the Blind is about precedes us. And people think that the Federation, if you have this type of cane, you're not a Federationist. If you use this particular strategy, you're not a Federationist. if you don't do this then... And that's not true. I mean, we have an organization that's big enough for every blind person. So it's helpful to have those moments of education to blind people as well about who we are as an organization.
Cindy Scott-Huisman: And Stacie mentioned a while ago about how we're all unique individuals in the blindness community. We aren't all exactly the same. And it made me think about when the Fine Arts Museum that's here in Little Rock has a brand new program that they're doing. It's going to be a docent-led tour that's targeted to folks like us, and they were calling it for visually impaired. And it hit me just, I don't know why, I've actually used the words visually impaired in the past, but I think the more I've gotten involved with National Federation of the Blind, the less okay I am with that phrase, that term.
And I did some polling within chapter presidents and my leadership group and other areas of my life, and I tried to really discern inside my mind and figure out why do I not like this term? And I finally got it together enough to feel confident about going to the museum and saying, "If we're going to do this, let's call it something different." And everybody has different words and labels that they're fine with or they want to use, and they changed it. They said, "we ll call it a tour for people who are blind or low-vision. And I felt really good about making that change.
Anil Lewis: Nice.
Melissa Riccobono: That's amazing.
Stacie Gallegos:
Every little bit that we can do, it's a step in the right direction. I'm really trying very hard here to make folks in our Houston area realize the importance of Braille. We'll go to a community meeting and they have agendas in print and they're in, you put on the accommodations form, formations form that you need materials in Braille, and so they make a public announcement. The director of the Mayor's office for people with disabilities actually said in an announcement, "We don't have Braille materials." And so I am being proactive and have gotten the contact information for somebody to start a conversation with them and help them realize the importance. If blind people are going to be involved in these community events, we need a way to access information. Don't just give us a print agenda on the day of the event.
Anil Lewis: And take the print agenda away from everybody.
Stacie Gallegos: Absolutely.
Anil Lewis: And just have someone read the agenda to everybody if that's-
Melissa Riccobono: Yeah, it reminds me a lot of, and this is a little bit off field, so if this doesn't get into the podcast, it's fine. But I was on the committee to try to help choose a principal for my children's school. We had great candidates. One of the candidates, though, was a Spanish speaker. Our population in the school is many, many Hispanic families and many Hispanic families that have just recently immigrated to the United States. And so the parents are still very much, and the kids are English as a second language learners, and the parents speak Spanish very fluently, and some are very uncomfortable in English. And it was amazing to me to see the difference. Now, all the meetings had interpretation. When we had questions, there were a couple of times that a Spanish-speaking member of the committee spoke up and asked a question, and then it was translated and the person answered and it was translated back.
But this particular principal, it was so heartening to me to see the families get in there and be able to ask him questions directly, have him directly answer. And I said it was very much like when I had a Braille program for one of our children's stepping-up ceremony. I wasn't expecting it, but it was such a nice surprise. I knew what was going on. I had the list of names. I had everything I needed right under my fingertips. And so when it came down to push came to shove, and we were trying to decide between two different candidates, I said "To me that Spanish-speaking principal rules the day because families can connect with him."
I don't think we can overestimate just that little thing and things that we don't think about. Maybe in our day-to-Day lives, absolutely. But not having that language barrier, not having to ask for Braille, all of a sudden just having Braille under our fingers, like, oh my gosh. It made me feel so much more included and seen. So we did end up hiring him, and he's doing a great job, but it was a really big eye-opening experience for me. It just brought my own understanding to when I ask for accommodations or receive accommodations, how lovely that is and how sad it is that that's not more of our default. And how reading the agenda, that is an accommodation, but how it's different when you actually have somebody that can speak your own language or you actually have that Braille right in front of you instead of having to struggle to listen or to take notes or to guess what's going on.
Stacie Gallegos: Yeah. I didn't mean to get us off topic, but it kind of sort of fits.
Cindy Scott-Huisman: No, it definitely does.
Stacie Gallegos: Like I said in the beginning, our work is never over. We ve come a long way, but we still have a long ways to go.
Anil Lewis: Well, the world keeps evolving, so we have to continue to evolve lest we become extinct, and that we can't tolerate.
Stacie Gallegos: Yes.
Anil Lewis: This has been a very interesting conversation with both of you, so I appreciate you spending time with us on the podcast. I'm curious to see what conversations this particular podcast creates among the community. So I'm interested in seeing what type of feedback we get from this podcast, interested in hearing our listeners' perspectives and if they have some other topics that they feel may be of interest moving forward, looking forward to those suggestions as well. But I want to personally thank you for sharing a little bit of you and what you're doing during Blind Equality Achievement Month and sharing your personal stories with our listeners.
Stacie Gallegos: Well, thank you so much for the wonderful opportunity.
Cindy Scott-Huisman: Yes, thank you for having us.
Rachel Ramos [over music]: Hi, this is Rachel Ramos from HumanWare. I'm excited to share that starting in October and running to the end of December, HumanWare is matching all contributions to the National Federation of the Blind up to $50,000. This challenge grant is a celebration of our shared goal to advance Braille literacy and equal access to information for all blind people. You can participate in the match in any of the following ways. Visit nfb.org/donate. Call 410-659-9314, extension 2430. Or you can mail a check to the National Federation of the Blind, 200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230. Thank you for helping us celebrate the power of Braille, community and partnerships.
Anil Lewis: So Melissa?
Melissa Riccobono: Yes, sir.
Anil Lewis: I know it's been a while, but we still have our chops. I think we did a sufficient job, and if not, I'm sure we're hear from our listeners to tell us that we didn't, but-
Melissa Riccobono: I think these ladies helped a lot.
Anil Lewis: Yes, exactly. Well, until the next time, to all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in to the Nation's Blind Podcast. And remember, you can live the life you want.
Melissa Riccobono: Blindness is not what holds you back.
Outro [male voice over music]: We'd love your feedback. Email [email protected] or call 410-659-9314, extension 2444.