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The following message is brought to you by Mark Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind. Live the life you want.
Mark Riccobono:
Greetings, fellow Federationists. Today is Monday, September 29th, 2025, and this is Presidential Release Number 553. I want to welcome everybody to Blind Equality Achievement Month, and this year we are celebrating movement by encouraging chapters to get out in the community, to move in the community in support of the organized blind movement.
And so I thought I'd take this opportunity to do this recording from Riverside Park across from our building in Baltimore at noon when our NFB Walking Club that walks on Mondays, the staff group takes a little stroll in the park every Monday at noon.
So I thought I'd record my release from here, so you may hear a number of noises while this release is being recorded. I do have a few things to discuss with you on this release, and top of the list is our Coast-to-Coast Movement Challenge.
It is not too late if you have not already made plans to be part of our Coast-to-Coast Movement Challenge. Both chapters and individuals can participate in person or virtually in our Coast-to-Coast Challenge.
We want to get moving out in the community to support interest and answer questions of the public in the National Federation of the Blind, but also to generate donations to the National Federation of the Blind.
And our movement campaign is designed to do just that. I would love to have every chapter represented in our Coast-to-Coast Challenge by having at least one person designated from every chapter to represent their chapter in getting out and walking.
Some chapters are putting efforts together to have a group walk, but we really, at a minimum, just want one person from every chapter to be represented in our Coast-to-Coast Movement Campaign.
So I encourage your chapter if you have not already done so to think about participating in this event. Actually, now's the time to get moving and to participate in this event.
And you can do this informally. You can do this as an organized group, or you can simply designate someone to go out and walk on behalf of the chapter. But everybody in the chapter can raise money to support your walker or runner and to support the work of the National Federation of the Blind.
First of all, let me talk about virtual participation because that's how a lot of chapters will participate in this effort. There is no registration fee for chapters or individuals to participate and sign up to be a virtual participant.
You can do that at nfb.org/movers, nfb.org/movers. And if you have questions about virtual participation, you can talk with Rachel Held at our national office.
You can reach her at extension 2423, and our main number, as you know, is 410-659-9314. Rachel can be reached via email at [email protected].
Now, if you or your chapter wants to participate in our Coast-to-Coast Movement Challenge in person by coming to Maryland for our Bay Bridge Run Walk event on November 9th, I'll be there as well.
You can find more information about that and how to sign up to be in person at that same Movers web page.
There is a registration fee to participate in person. That is a fee that the race provider has.
But if you sign up and agree to raise money for the Federation, the Federation will waive your registration fee for the Bay Bridge Run Walk if you are one of the first 25 individuals to register and to raise 500 dollars to support the work of the National Federation of the Blind. And that is an important part of this effort.
We need money to do all the great work that we want to do. Every contribution that's made during our campaign can be tagged to a specific individual or a chapter.
And this is why we want all chapters to be involved in helping to raise money because many hands make light work. So please get involved with our Coast-to-Coast Movement Challenge. Let's build some new opportunities for Blind Equality Achievement Month 2025.
Now, I do have two quick advocacy notes to share with you. Very exciting news. And the first is that on Friday, September 26th, 2025, representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois introduced the Medical Device Nonvisual Accessibility Act.
Yes, it's finally introduced into Congress. Again, we've been waiting. This is H.R. 5605. Please go out and help get co-sponsors for this. I'm proud to say that there were 12 originating co-sponsors for Republicans and eight Democrats.
Again, great bipartisan support, but we need much more support for this important bill that you know will help create standards to make sure that medical devices and home use are nonvisually accessible.
Now, you'll also know that we have been advocating for much of this year to make the telehealth provisions under the law permanent so that blind people and others can continue to take advantage of telehealth benefits.
The provision under the law that we're concerned about will expire tomorrow on September 30th. And if you're following the news, actually by the time you hear this, it'll be all over the news. There's a lot of questions about whether a continuing resolution will be signed for the federal budget.
We want to take this matter outside of the federal budget process and simply have this provision be made permanent.
And so I'm proud to share with you that the CONNECT for Health Act, which is S.1261 and H.R.4206, has been introduced into Congress, and this would do exactly what we want, but outside of the budget process.
It would make the Medicare Telehealth extension provisions permanent. And so we have these two independent bills that you can advocate for and I do urge you to do that.
As of Friday, there were already 63 senators co-sponsoring the Senate bill, which means it already has more than the majority support and there's great support in the House as well. So two important advocacy items to work on here in the month of October.
I do want to share with you now just a couple of Federation family news items from the past month from Minnesota. Corbb O'Connor shares the passing of Bob Raisbeck earlier in the month.
Bob had been in hospice care after a long illness, including a stroke that he experienced nine years ago and also stage four kidney cancer.
Amy Barron, his longtime partner and also a member of the National Federation of the Blind, has let us know that there will be a celebration of life ceremony coming up soon and that information will be circulated. Bob was central to many aspects of the Federation.
He was part of the rebuilding of the Wisconsin Affiliate in the mid-1970s, and he moved to Minnesota in 1990, that is, to attend Blind Incorporated. He was active in Minnesota after that. He often still came to many Wisconsin conventions, as I first met him in Wisconsin when I joined the Affiliate.
Among his other leadership roles, he loved to promote and advocate for people making financial contributions on a regular basis to the Federation through our pre-authorized contribution plan.
So please keep Bob, Amy, and their friends and family in your thoughts and prayers. And from Maryland, Ronza Othman has shared the sad news that Steve Brand passed away on September 2nd.
Steve was a longtime member of the NFB of Maryland and our Greater Baltimore chapter. He was also very active with our Maryland Association of Blind Merchants. He served as an employee of the Federation for many years.
He was on staff at the Federation when I moved to Baltimore in the early part of this century. And just one of the many contributions he made was being an integral part of the NFB of Maryland's annual Crab Feast.
Many of us have very fond memories of his important work there. The Crab Feast just happened on September 19th, and we took our Kenneth Jernigan Leadership-In-Service program participants for this year to the Crab Feast.
And one of the special elements of it this year was that Steve Brand's family was there and we had a chance to honor Steve, remember his important contributions and contribute to the legacy that he has left for us.
So I encourage you to keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers. This brings me to the end of this recorded release, and I guess it's going to be time for me to pick up my cane and get on the move again.
But I do hope that you take the opportunity to get on the move with your chapter and support the work of the National Federation of the Blind, both our public messaging and the need to raise financial support for our organization.
For those of you who will hear this release early in the month, I remind you that we have a presidential release live from Washington D.C. on November 9th. Now, for some of the customary endings.
Why don't bears wear hiking boots?
Well, because they prefer to go barefoot, of course.
What kind of jacket do you wear on a hike?
Well, that would be a trailblazer.
And for our book fans out there, here is a book that you will never find because it has not yet been written.
That is Coming 'Round the Mountain written by Shelby Back. Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind and stay on the move.
Audio:
The preceding message was brought to you by Mark Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind. 410-659-9314. Office of the President at nfb.org. Follow President Riccobono on Mastodon. Just search for @[email protected]. Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.