This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
PAM ALLEN: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our April Presidential Release. Thank you so much for being with us this evening. We want to say a special hello to everyone who may be joining us for your first Presidential Release. We are so happy that you are here with us tonight.
I know that we have many exciting things happening in the National Federation of the Blind to discuss tonight! So I'm going to turn it over to President Riccobono.
President Riccobono, are you out there?
President Riccobono?
CHRIS DANIELSEN: Hey, Pam?
PAM ALLEN: Wait a minute. This is not President Riccobono.
CHRIS DANIELSEN: No, no, I'm definitely not President Riccobono, but we can't find him.
PAM ALLEN: Is there a Brewers game tonight?
CHRIS DANIELSEN: You know, I don't know. I thought all of Major League Baseball had the day off. I know the Orioles did. And Mark and I were just at opening day yesterday. We had a good time.
PAM ALLEN: I heard that was a lot of fun. That was going to be my next question.
CHRIS DANIELSEN: Was I talking over you?
PAM ALLEN: No, I just thought that maybe you had too much fun on opening day yesterday.
CHRIS DANIELSEN: Well, it was a lot of fun, and the Orioles won. Good Orioles. That made Mark happy, because the Brewers are not doing as well. Yet.
Well, but he should be here... so there's Braille. It looks like maybe his notes are here.
PAM ALLEN: Okay.
CHRIS DANIELSEN: But we don't know where he is. I don't know. Should I maybe start reading this?
PAM ALLEN: Well, I mean, I think -- let's see. Because I know we have a lot of things happening. A lot of things going on tonight to discuss. So this is very peculiar. Well, you know, we always have a plan B, right?
CHRIS DANIELSEN: Right, right. There's a sheet of Braille here. It says something about the President on it, so I'm going to...
PAM ALLEN: Okay, let's see. This is like a clue. A mystery.
CHRIS DANIELSEN: Maybe. Maybe. Let's see.
PAM ALLEN: We rise to the occasion. We got this under control.
CHRIS DANIELSEN: Absolutely. Doesn't feel under control, but we got it.
So let's see. This says: The President's seat is ignored. He's not in the place you adored. No, he's not lost or bored; he's just calm and assured in the conference room! April fool's! You've been floored!
[Laughter]
PAM ALLEN: That was a good one, President Riccobono.
MARK RICCOBONO: Would you guys stop goofing off? We have work to do.
PAM ALLEN: So you weren't sneaking off to Milwaukee or anything?
MARK RICCOBONO: Goodness, no.
PAM ALLEN: Wait. You are in the conference room? Well, that was a good trick. Chris and I were ready, though. We had it under control.
MARK RICCOBONO: Chris was ready.
CHRIS DANIELSEN: Exactly. But maybe we should explain, well, I'm sure you will explain to everyone what we mean by the conference room.
PAM ALLEN: Yeah, because some people have never been in this conference room.
MARK RICCOBONO: That's right. We're going to talk about it. Very special night, Pam. You'll remember, this is our 50th Presidential Release live.
PAM ALLEN: Hard to believe.
MARK RICCOBONO: Tomorrow is the big anniversary of the first one. We're going to do a little look back tonight. Lot of special stuff. But you have a lot going on in Louisiana right now.
PAM ALLEN: We just finished our convention, which was awesome. It was a great weekend and a great kick off, and I just want to share, there are 98 days until July 8th.
MARK RICCOBONO: Whew! Okay.
PAM ALLEN: We're down to less than 100. So it's exciting. We can't wait. We're welcoming the Teachers of Tomorrow this week. So it's a good week.
MARK RICCOBONO: Excellent. Excellent.
All right. Well, thanks for playing along.
PAM ALLEN: Yeah, that was a great one. We appreciate the good April fool's humor.
MARK RICCOBONO: Should we get started? We have some other surprises ahead.
Greetings, fellow Federationists. Today is Tuesday, April 1, 2025, and this is Presidential Release live number 50. I thought it was a great opportunity to bring you back to our recently remodeled main conference room here at our national office where we had our very first Presidential Release live five years ago tomorrow. We're going to talk a little bit more about that.
This conference room is one of the places that a lot of Federationists come for the first time when they visit our building. I would say almost every meeting of real significance in the Federation has happened in this room since we moved into this property in 1979. This was one of the very first spaces. And this room continues to have some of the features you would know and remember if you had been here, but also something new.
So if you've never been to our national office, let me tell you that our conference room here continues to have Braille books on three sides. These are Braille books that were part of Dr. Jernigan's personal Braille book collection. They're made available to us due to the generosity of Mrs. Jernigan.
We also have in this room Braille copies of our Braille Monitor that are in this room as well.
It also has a number of symbols of the history of the organized blind movement. For example, there's a table here that was made by Dr. Jernigan himself. There's an axe that was given to Marc Maurer based on the Kernel Book story that he wrote that you can still look up and read today. There is a portrait of Dr. Jernigan in this room. And we've also added with the remodel a portrait of Mrs. Jernigan now here in the conference room.
We have some beautiful new tables I'm sitting at right now, and every two spots or so has a nice microphone like the one I'm using with a tactile button to be able to turn it off and on. We have power integrated into the tables in here, great new speakers, and obviously now equipped for Zoom which is very different than when we had our first Presidential Release live here 5 years ago.
In addition to the tables, we have these very comfy new autumn orange chairs. They're not quite Orioles orange. They're autumn orange. And very consistent with our branding colors. So this remodel also has given us new lighting in this room. We have changed the wall surfaces and made them white to contrast the great colors in this room from the Braille books and the furniture.
We have new carpeting in the room. And also when you enter the room, at the back of the room from where I am, when you enter the room, there is an LVT flooring so it makes a contrast from where the table area is. The Zoom room of course is operated through a fully accessible iPad right here to my right. So really great historical space that is made even better through the continued development of the Federation.
We're also going to do a little more work in here. We were just chatting about putting some Federation logos in here and that sort of thing. So I look forward to your next visit here to our national office to check out this historic conference room and be part of making the new history.
Now, before I get to the many, many things we need to talk about tonight, I did want to have us look back at the anniversary we will celebrate tomorrow of the very first Presidential Release. You know, it was in this very room that we came together because we knew it was important to bring blind people together to talk about the continued work of the National Federation of the Blind in a really unprecedented time of uncertainty.
And we also face a very different kind of uncertainty in our nation today as we come to the 5-year anniversary of the first Presidential Release live. And I thought it was important for us to have a reminder of what happens when the Federation comes together in the face of uncertainty and unusual times to look back at what we did when faced with a worldwide pandemic, which is certainly something none of us had contemplated.
And when we held that very first Presidential Release live on April 2nd, 2020, it was only 20 days earlier that the national board of directors put a stay on all of our in-person meetings in the Federation. At that time it was just going to be through the end of April. Obviously that continued for much longer. It had only been 10 days since the Governor of Maryland required us to have everybody out of the building. So we were shut down at that point, operating at a distance.
And you can listen to the full live recording of that Presidential Release live or read the transcript on our website, but we thought we would give you just a few snippets of that very first Presidential Release live.
(Recording).
PAM ALLEN: Good evening my Federation family and welcome to all of you! We have hundreds of Federationists from around our country joining us this evening for this historic event, our first ever live Presidential Release, and we are so delighted that all of you are here with us this evening. We know that our Federation family around the country is coming together during this time of uncertainty, but one thing that we know for sure is that we can count on each other in the National Federation of the Blind.
Again, it is wonderful to welcome all of you this evening. We come together to draw strength, to draw energy, to draw from the love of each other. And it is my pleasure now to turn over this evening to our esteemed President, whose never ending energy, whose tremendous courage, wisdom, love, and commitment to our organization and to each of us give us great comfort and solace during this time.
President Riccobono?
MARK RICCOBONO: Thank you very much, Pam, and I appreciate your leadership and efforts as well. And greetings, fellow Federationists. Today is April 2nd, 2020, and this is Presidential Release number 493. Our first Presidential Release with a live audience. So I'll say hello from each of you since you're all muted but it is really cool to have you all on the Zoom platform with us this evening.
What a difference a month can make. What a difference the Federation family always makes.
And we're doing some unusual things since we're stuck at home together. For me, you probably have noticed I've been posting videos to Facebook of me playing the guitar, which is kind of a stretch for me because I'm not really a public performer in that way, but it's been a little bit fun to see people's comments about it.
First and foremost, me and my family extend our great appreciation to each and every one of you who have reached out to give your personal support, to check on how we're doing in and amongst the Federation work and keeping the Federation moving forward. So I'm so grateful to each and every one of you.
So this evening I have a slew of things to talk to you about. I'm going to get through them as quickly as I can. The good news, the best news, is that the heart beat and engine of the National Federation of the Blind is as strong as ever. We continue to connect and protect blind people in the way only we can in the National Federation of the Blind. And although we're facing a lot of things we hadn't planned for, the Federation members, leaders have stepped up in a real way.
Not just virtual events, but blind people picking up the phone and checking on our members who aren't as well socially connected or plugged in to technology as some of us, and it's really heartwarming to see. Keep it up. Keep checking on our Federation family members, and keep reaching out to blind people in the communities. It is really making a difference, and we are hearing that every day from blind people, both those we're watching and coordinating, making sure we're providing expertise on accessibility.
The convention is our most important activity. We will have an annual meeting of some sort. It's hard to say today what it will look like or shape it will be, but the beauty of it is this allows us an opportunity to get innovative and think about some new ideas, some approaches.
Know who to call if you need help. The Federation is here and we'll try to have someone there to help you make sure you're connected with Federationists especially if you don't have family to provide you with support. Certainly blindness should not be taken into account in this time, but it's a real conversation. We were talking about these conversations before this crisis, and of course disability not being the most respected characteristic is going to be easily used against us in this situation. The best thing I can say is we have to band together.
SPEAKER: I'm Elizabeth Riccobono, and I have a joke.
SPEAKER: You do?
MARK RICCOBONO: Why does the M&M go to school?
SPEAKER: It wanted some candy?
SPEAKER: No.
SPEAKER: It wanted to learn to read?
SPEAKER: No. It wanted to be a Smartie.
(Recording ends).
MARK RICCOBONO: All right. What a great look back. It does remind you how truly outstanding the work of all of the members of the Federation, our staff, so many people came together in so many ways and so quickly. Of course when we had our very first release, we already had a sense that we were going to take our national convention virtual, but we couldn't say so publicly because we had obligations to our hotel that we had to negotiate and work out and figure out before we could do that.
And so many things that the Federation did when it had to. Just as we will now in the times we're in. Just as we have in the past. And just as we will in the future because I know the heart beat that you all bring to this movement we have, to the work that we do, and although sometimes we come across situations that are discouraging, there's always so much hope in this family that we have together.
So again, tremendous amount of gratitude for what we did together 5 years ago and going forward, innovating this Presidential Release live has been such a great opportunity to engage with the members in new and dynamic ways. I look forward to bringing the Presidential Release live to one of our chapters out there very soon.
So again, if you're interested, go look at the full video, and we will be posting the look back I'm sure to our social media tomorrow for the anniversary.
Let's talk about the present, although I do want to say that history is important for helping to give us guidance in what we do going forward. I do have a lot of things to share with you in a short amount of time before we get to some questions here.
So here we go. From NFB-NEWSLINE, our NFB-NEWSLINE group is seeking Federation members to volunteer to assist with beta testing two new things. One is the beta version of the Android application for NFB-NEWSLINE on your mobile device. NFB-NEWSLINE is also looking for folks to beta test the new touch tone telephone access system that our team has been putting together.
First of all, Android testers will be asked to access NFB mobile phone application and perform various tasks included downloading newspapers, navigating, and adding content from various services.
If you are interested in being a beta tester for the Android mobile app, please contact Jack Mendez at [email protected] to fill out an application to be a beta tester for that.
Also NFB members who wish to kick the tires and give us feedback on the new NFB-NEWSLINE access system for the touch tone telephone are invited to apply to evaluate that system, and that will include testing out some new voices and new interface experience on the touch tone telephone. We've been working to move our operations to a more stable platform and test out some new things, so we need your help in testing that out. If you want to test the touch tone telephone system, please write to Scott White at [email protected] to be considered to beta test that.
Now let me talk to you about the tremendous amount of work we've been doing on the advocacy side of our work during the last month. And there is a lot of it.
To start off, we had at the last Presidential Release, we discussed the fact that the Medicare telehealth provisions were set to expire at the end of March. We discussed it on March 5th. We sent a letter to all members of Congress, urging that they prioritize making sure that telehealth benefits were extended. We called on members to get the word out to Congress, and you did that. When Congress passed the most recent continuing resolution last month, the Medicare telehealth benefits were included in the bill.
Now, unfortunately they were only made permanent through the end of the federal fiscal year, so through the end of September 2025. We did in our letter urge that they be made permanent without having to be revisited.
So your calls, your advocacy, did make a difference, but we need you to continue to reach out to members of Congress and to advocate that these provisions be made permanent in a real way so that they don't have to be revisited on a regular basis. We will continue to monitor this, continue to press Congress from our national office, but we need you to do the same. Telehealth has been a great benefit to many people, and of course certainly to blind people who face issues around transportation. We will continue to work on this, but I urge you to continue to press members of Congress on this.
On another front, on March 14th, the White House issued an Executive Order eliminating the Institute for Museum and Library Services. On March 19th, we sent a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, to educate them on the important function that the IMLS has, especially as it relates to providing funding for libraries for the blind. In many states, the regional library for the blind program is funded 100% because of federal funds that come from the IMLS program at the federal level.
So many regional libraries for the blind are facing very dramatic shutdowns. We continue to monitor this, and we are concerned about it. We have been talking to the National Library Service, which of course is under the Library of Congress, and that service at the moment seems to be okay, but we're really worried about what's going to happen in many states where state funding is not used or is only partially used to support the library for the blind program.
So we urge all members to reach out to your members of Congress to understand what the impact is on your regional library and to help advocate for the continuation of those programs at the local level.
Now, as of today, we have learned that most of the staff at IMLS has been placed on administrative leave, and so the funding is uncertain at this time but we know that the staff is on administrative leave, and that is being reviewed.
So very concerned about that. We're going to have to continue to monitor that on a daily basis.
Now, on March 20th, the White House issued an Executive Order to begin efforts to close the Department of Education. This was not a surprise, but we swung into action, and on March 25th, we sent a letter to the Secretary of Education, asking for clarification and urging her to maintain a transition of critical programs for people with disabilities, especially blind people, and enforcement of those programs in federal law.
We are going to continue to monitor this. These programs of course that are housed in the Department of Education currently include all services related to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and those protections; the federal quota system, operated by the American Printing House for the Blind; vocational rehabilitation of course under RSA; and the Randolph-Sheppard program which creates business opportunities for blind people; and finally, the independent living services program for older adults who are blind.
These programs, we're not sure what the plan is. We are continuing to reach out and get information about that. But again, we need to work to make sure members of Congress know that the blind of America want these programs protected, and they do make a great difference.
The Federation has not taken a formal position on the Department of Education itself. Not our lane exactly. We want to protect these programs, and as long as they're well protected and the funding is protected, it's up to the administration and Congress to decide the best structure for that. We simply want the programs to be preserved.
Now, let's move to social security, because I'm sure you have heard a lot about this in the news, and the Federation has been very active since late February and into March as the Social Security Administration announced a number of new policies and administrative, drastic administrative cuts that will have an impact on blind people and are already having an impact on blind people.
These include a reduction of a number of personnel, significant number of personnel, and offices. And changes to the identification procedures and requirements that will require more beneficiaries to show up in person at offices, which creates an additional burden. And the reinstatement of overaggressive repayment collection procedures under the Social Security Administration.
These are all things directly impacting blind people already today. We have many examples of members who have been waiting already too long to hear about their benefits or their case, and this is only going to make the problem worse. We know that these cuts will disproportionately harm people with disabilities.
On March 26th, we sent a letter to the acting commissioner of social security. We're continuing to do advocacy work with Congress and anywhere else we can find to raise this concern. If you find opportunities to do so, we would ask you to carry this message forward as well.
We do expect to be taking additional action in this area, which I'm not at liberty to the talk about this evening, but please stay tuned for that.
All of these letters, in fact, all of our policy letters, can be found on the NFB website in our policy section. We post all of our letters to Congress and the executive branch so our members are aware of them.
Keep up the advocacy work. There will be a lot more to do to protect the programs that we have helped to establish in the federal government to support the independence of blind people.
Let me talk specifically now about our work in Congress, because we have been creating great momentum there since our Washington Seminar and specifically I want to talk to you about the Access Technology Affordability Act. Our momentum on this bill, and as a reminder, that's HR 1529, is really tremendous. In the last month we have picked up 14 new cosponsors, bringing our total to 15 cosponsors.
We need to continue to build our cosponsors for this legislation quite urgently because the greater number of cosponsors we have, the greater shot that we have to get this bill incorporated into any tax bill reform that is going to be considered by Congress. We do know that there will be a tax package. We want the Access Technology Affordability Act to be included. So please, very urgently, contact your members of Congress, get their commitment, and get them to sign on to be a cosponsor of this bill in the House.
Now, also over the last month or so, we have been talking about the lawsuit known now as Texas versus Kennedy. As a reminder, this suit threatens to eliminate our protections under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Last month I told you about the case and urged our members in the 17 states that have participated in bringing this lawsuit to urge the Governor, the Attorney General in those states to withdraw their participation in the case.
We sent a letter to all 17 states Attorneys General and governors on March 4th.
We've also been encouraging members to reach out if you aren't in those states and feel free to put the pressure on those states to get out of this case, but of course if you live in the state, you're going to have a lot more impact.
We've also distributed a draft resolution that affiliates can pass that calls on the Governor and Attorney General to withdraw from this case and this attack on the Rehabilitation Act.
So far four of our 17 affiliates have passed that resolution, either at a convention or through their board of directors if the convention is not meeting this spring. I urge you to do that if you're in one of those 17 states, and we've even had a couple of affiliates that aren't in the 17 states that have passed a resolution. So thank you for that support.
We are trying to keep all the pressure on the right places, and we will continue to monitor this. There is a hearing coming up on April 21st that will give us a lot more information about where we need to go in our advocacy efforts. So please stay tuned. But for now, especially if you're in one of those 17 states, please, take efforts to urge the leadership in your state to withdraw from this case which would have really damaging impacts on our protections as blind people in this country.
Okay. That was a lot of advocacy work. And that's just one month of stuff we've been doing.
I'm going it turn my attention to some other things now, but please know that your active engagement in this policy work is critical at this time.
Let's talk about employment and our national convention. I have here an announcement which reminds us that registration for the National Federation of the Blind national convention career fair is now open. This is hosted by our National Employment Committee, and this event will take place on July 9 at our national convention in New Orleans from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and you can get more information about this at our website. The event is free to job seekers. And for employers, you are very much encouraged to come to recruit blind talent. The cost is $100 to have a table there to recruit some of this great blind talent that we have.
You can find more information about this at our website, including our job seeker and employer registration forms. Go to www.NFB.org/employment and you can get all the information you will need. If you have questions and you are a job seeker and want to learn more or have questions, reach out to the employment committee's job seeker liaison. That's Charles Bennett. His email address is [email protected].
For employers, if you have questions or want to help hunt up employers, please reach out to the committee's employer liaison, Kris Colcock at [email protected].
I also want to note that as it relates to the national convention, we will be working with our national division of federal employees and also our partners at the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults to find ways to help blind individuals who have been released from their federal employment due to the recent reductions. We're going to work to put together a program to help those blind federal employees that we can get to the national convention to be part of the career fair at our convention.
And as long as I'm talking about that, a reminder that we do have a form for federal workers who have been let go who would like help from the Federation with getting connected with new employment opportunities. We want to find other ways to help out as well. So you can find that form, again, at www.NFB.org/employment. You can always reach out to Nikki Jackson here at our national office, who would love to help you get connected with employment opportunities.
Now let me flip back because I jumped ahead.
I do want to let you know that we have a where the blind work webinar coming up, where you can learn about blind professionals who are working in the human services field. This event will take place on April 24th from 8:00-9:00 p.m. Eastern Time via Zoom of course. Our speakers will be a variety of individuals working in the human services field who are blind. You can register for this webinar by going to, if you haven't figured it out yet, NFB.org/employment.
Now, I also want to let you know about another convention-related item and overlapping with employment, and that is our effort to engage students in our career quest at the national convention. So this announcement says, calling all students who are interested in career exploration.
Our career quest program will take place during the 2025 national convention from July 8 through July 13 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This will be an opportunity for students to work closely with blind mentors in a week-long experience to gain valuable background and mentorship related to career and employment opportunities.
This of course is the largest gathering of blind people anywhere in the world, and it's the best opportunity to make connections that would lead to future employment, and we know that most people get jobs because of connections they have and finding the right fit.
For individuals who are interested in participating in this program, you should complete the career quest interest form at NFB.org/employment. There are only 25 spots available for this program at the national convention.
If you have questions about the program or want to help promote the program and have questions about it, please contact the employment program coordinator here at our national office. That's Nikki Jackson. Her email is [email protected], or (410)659-9314 extension 2404.
All right. Before I move away from employment, I should also mention to you that of course the National Federation of the Blind is always looking for talented staff and individuals to join our staff team here in Baltimore. We do have a number of openings right now here for work at our national office.
You can find that information on the career opportunities page at NFB.org. I would encourage you to check those out quickly. Opportunities are always being posted, and we fill them as quickly as possible. So please get your resumes in to us. We are always trying to create opportunities with the dynamic team we have here at our national office.
Now, a couple of fundraising items. We've talked a lot about finances here lately in the Federation. We're looking to create new opportunities to help individuals contribute to the work of the National Federation of the Blind financially.
Now, you can do that yourself, but you can also promote that to other people to get them to support our work. We have a new one that would be worth your participating in and promoting to others. We have gotten signed up for the Walmart round up program. We are now listed in this program, which is part of Walmart's "Spark Good" program.
Here's what you need to do if you want to sign up to support the round up program with Walmart. You need to log in to Walmart.com with your account, and from there you should click on the "giving and impact" link on the left side menu. Then select the "choose a local charity" option, and then search for National Federation of the Blind. Our team suggests a hint that you should clear all the filters off of that search to make sure that you can find National Federation of the Blind on that page. You can review all the ways to give to the Federation, including this one and the instructions I just gave you at our ways to give page at NFB.org right on the home page.
I'm sure we'll post the URL in the chat for this evening. And you will find there are so many ways to give, I couldn't even cover them all here on this release. In fact, I should let you know that in addition to Walmart, the Federation is now taking cryptocurrency which we would be happy to take and turn it into program for the National Federation of the Blind if you have any laying around.
Before I check back with Pam to see what kind of questions we have this evening, I want to let you no he that we've been reviewing our branding. Lately there's been a lot of discussion about diversity, equity, and inclusion and changes that we should be making in the country. As a result, we've been considering how to make our one-minute message maybe more politically correct and more comfortable for those who might not be blind. And we thought we would test it out here on this release to see what members of the Federation think.
So, Will, roll the video.
[Video]
SPEAKER: The National Federation of the Blind.
SPEAKER: Knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Low expectations create obstacles between blind people. You can live the life you want. Blindness is not what holds you back.
SPEAKER: The national Federation of the sightless knows that insufficient visual acuity is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of hard of seeing people because low expectations create obstacles between -- oh, I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER: Low expectations create obstacles between visually insufficient people? And their dreams?
SPEAKER: You can live the life you want being differently abled. Yuck. That is not what holds you back. No, this archaic ableism language. That's what holds us back. Yes. Take this trash.
(Video ends).
MARK RICCOBONO: What do you think, Pam?
PAM ALLEN: Well, I was really looking forward to seeing this. That's...
MARK RICCOBONO: So this is actually, we had this in the vault from 2020. This is a little video we put together. We had a series for a while where we were doing videos for April Fool's Day. This one was actually supposed to air on April 1, 2020. We decided it probably wasn't the time. So it's been sitting in the vault kind of forgotten.
PAM ALLEN: It's amazing how the timing...
MARK RICCOBONO: It's still okay to say blind, though.
PAM ALLEN: Proud to say it.
MARK RICCOBONO: So we had a lot of announcements and things. Hopefully we still have some questions. We've got plenty of time.
PAM ALLEN: We do. Thank you so much, President Riccobono. It's so interesting to reflect on the 5 years. It seems like it was just yesterday and it seems like a long time ago at the same time. But I remember that evening how exhilarating it was to come together. We were all so new to the virtual world but we were probably one of the first organizations to jump up and get things moving.
MARK RICCOBONO: Yeah, absolutely. And now our sound is so much better. Our look is so much better.
PAM ALLEN: Exactly. Yep. I know.
MARK RICCOBONO: So many great things. And yeah, you could just feel even in your introduction there too, the weight of the time. You know?
PAM ALLEN: It was. I can remember just people, as we were watching, people join join join join join join join join, the numbers going up. It's definitely a testament to your leadership and our great team and our wonderful Federation community that just rallies always to be stronger together for sure.
MARK RICCOBONO: One of the things, if you watch the full video or listen to the audio, we didn't put it in the look back, but at the beginning, you'll remember that we maxed out at 300. Even though we had a larger license. So we had to do some scrambling to figure that out.
PAM ALLEN: Yeah. Talk about problem solving.
MARK RICCOBONO: That's right. Absolutely.
PAM ALLEN: So yes, we to have a couple questions. We had a number of questions about advocacy. And I think you covered all of the bases there and all the different ways and all the ways that we are working in the National Federation of the Blind. So just how vigilant we must be to make sure our voices are heard.
We had a question related to accessible medical testing. There was a discussion about that and great progress for COVID-19 testing. Are there any updates on other accessible testing?
MARK RICCOBONO: That is a great question. I don't have any updates to share. We have been working closely with the program under NIH which you may remember that we had a leader from NIH who spoke at our national convention, crediting the Federation with being aggressive to raise this issue with the Biden Administration when the COVID testing from the government was made available.
I'm not clear on the status of that program, and we will check on that and get an update.
Folks at NIH in that program were making great progress. They've been engaging with us all along. We have referred a number of our members to serve as consultants to them, and they had been making great progress. Unfortunately, I suspect that is one of the programs that will be cut under NIH. But great question. We'll check on that.
PAM ALLEN: Okay. And we have another question about baseball season. I know one of your favorite times of the year. And ways that, how do you access baseball games as a blind person?
MARK RICCOBONO: So that's a great question. So, you know, first and foremost, most blind people utilize the radio because the radio call will maybe always be the most descriptive rendering of the game. And in fact, Chris and I, he mentioned we were at the ball game yesterday. We had our radios there and we were sometimes better tuned in to what was happening than some of the people around us when it's not always clear at a distance what's happening.
So that's the first thing. Of course if you're not listening to the ball game at the ballpark and you don't worry about how synchronized it is, there's a number of applications out there. MLB.com, you can get an MLB game day account. You can use Tune In I think still has Major League Baseball. Sirius XM has Major League Baseball. So plenty of ways to tune in and get mobile apps to track the stats and scores or have a fantasy baseball team, all that stuff.
PAM ALLEN: That's fun. Nothing like a live game, whatever your score. The excitement of that.
MARK RICCOBONO: That's right.
PAM ALLEN: And in respect to Presidential Release, I have a question about how a chapter can put in a bid to host.
MARK RICCOBONO: Ah, great question. So of course you can always write to me at [email protected]. We look at a lot of factors. Some of them being I can't necessarily be on the road every month. But we're interested in finding unique ways to bring the Presidential Release live to places, and we still have some requests that we're going to find a way to get to. So sometimes it's timing. It's helpful if we can put the residential release into some kind of other event or leverage it.
I mean, if we're going to have the Presidential Release live, let's make it an event. Let's do some work to build the Federation. So of course when you look at other times, we've been in New Orleans to help to hype our '22 convention. We went to Mississippi when there was a water crisis, and that allowed us an opportunity to do some work in the local community. We were in Chicago to do the Presidential Release live there to connect with our ride for literacy. So we want to look for those synergistic opportunities, but if you have an idea, throw it out.
Let's talk about it and let's see if the stars align, the schedules align, the priorities align. And again, because we're doing the recorded chapter release, it doesn't have to be at the beginning of the month. And we're not necessarily doing a live event every single month. But we're willing to look at it. Of course we're not going to do a Presidential Release live in July. Well, no, we are, it will be live in New Orleans. So those factors to consider.
But if you have an idea to do something dynamic, please, propose it. Let's talk about it. Get the support of your affiliate President and board. And let's try to make something happen.
PAM ALLEN: Awesome.
Well, we really appreciate everybody sending in the great questions tonight. And if we didn't have a chance to get to your question, our wonderful communications team will be following up to make sure we get your questions answered.
Thank you again so much for being with us tonight. Stay tuned for details about the time and date of our Presidential Release live in May.
You can contact President Riccobono at (410)659-9314 or via email at [email protected].
Thank you so much for being with us tonight.
MARK RICCOBONO: Thanks, Pam. You going to hang with me for the customary endings here?
PAM ALLEN: Of course. It was fun to hear Elizabeth 5 years younger.
MARK RICCOBONO: Yeah, I didn't tell her we were going to play that. She's a teenager now.
PAM ALLEN: You're going to pay for that one.
MARK RICCOBONO: Hopefully no one else tells her.
Well, that does bring us to the end of this Presidential Release. A lot of information and a lot of fun this evening as well. Live from our conference room. So really pleased to be able to bring it to you so you could hear what it sounds like.
We do have some customary endings. It's going to be a busy April here as we get ready for the national convention. 98 days, Pam says. Be here before we know it. So if you haven't gotten registered, gotten your room, please do so because the rooms will be going fast and registration will close at the end of May.
So in honor of the Milwaukee Brewers where the best thing right now really is the sausage race, Pam, I thought I would ask you, why did the sausage quit playing baseball?
PAM ALLEN: I can't imagine why.
MARK RICCOBONO: Because it was the wurst on the team.
PAM ALLEN: That is pretty bad.
MARK RICCOBONO: Do you know why Cinderella got kicked off the baseball team? Because she always ran away from the ball.
And since we took a look back 5 years ago, to 2020, I thought I would ask where will we be in 5 years?
PAM ALLEN: Where?
MARK RICCOBONO: Well, I don't know, because I don't have 20/30 vision.
Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.
The preceding message was brought to you by Mark Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind, (410)659-9314, office of the [email protected]. Follow President Riccobono on Mastodon. Just search for @[email protected]. Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.