[Community-service] Changing what it means to get things done!

[dsmithnfb at gmail.com]

Ashley,
 
  Most of  what it took was  pretty sinple- I ask If I didn;t know and/or I just tried a few things, or I worked with someone sighted. 
  Having a person that knew of blindness  to some degree was helpful but it  was  just that, helpful.
   I think you for reading and Hoped you enjoyed!
   It indeed is a play on both the NFB and AmeriCorps tag lines.   
 I hope you and other share some awesome stories just like this!

Sent from my iPhone

On May 14, 2012, at 8:27 AM, "Ashley Bramlett" <bookwormahb at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Darian,
> Wonderful article.  It was so long though that I just recently read it due to my hectic schedule.
> I haven't heard of many blind people helping in construction or painting work. How did you do this? How did they show you what to do? Hands on, I suppose. Did you get to mix concrete or lay any new surfaces outside?
> I could see myself cutting wood for construction  or cutting down tree limbs provided I was shown how, but I wonder about the other stuff.  That is pretty admirable what you did;  it takes a lot of strength to do it as well.
> I am glad that they included you in the projects.  It goes to show that past interactions with blind people shape their views, so it was a good coinsidence that one lady had intereacted with a blind person before.
> 
> Great article title as well. What a play on the nfb slogan.
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Darian Smith
> Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 4:22 PM
> To: Community Service Discussion List
> Subject: [Community-service] Changing what it means to get things done!
> 
> Hi all:
> I ran across this article I submitted to the National Association of
> Blind Student  publication "The Student Slate".
> In this  article I talked about my expirience in AmeriCorps NCCC
> While I have thought on it a bit and my views on something  things
> have changed- just realizing my growth and such-- I wanted to share!
> (can anyone guess the inspiration for  the title? - it is a
> combination of two tag lines*smile*)
> let me know what you think!
> 
> 
> Changing what it means to get things done:
> An AmeriCorps Experience
> 
> by Darian Smith
> 
> From the Editor: Darian Smith currently resides in California and
> attends the City College of San Francisco. He also serves on the board
> of the National Association of Blind Students. In this piece, Darian
> chronicles his experiences in AmeriCorps and demonstrates how
> volunteerism and community service can provide opportunities not only
> to better the lives of others, but also for personal growth and the
> education of our peers. Here is his story:
> 
> The Beginning
> 
> The Idea of serving one’s country via team-based national community
> service was something that struck me as a very powerful way to
> positively impact individuals, meet new people, better myself and
> change what it means to be blind. The Journey started as a small yet
> ever-present thought that was fostered in the summer of 2002 while I
> was a summer student at the Colorado Center for the Blind. A team of
> AmeriCorps national Civilian Community Corps members and their Team
> Leader spent a project at the center doing construction work on the
> building. After a positive few days of interaction with these great
> people and positive role-models, the then- Coordinator of the Colorado
> summer program suggested I look into the program and its benefits.
> 
> Many years past, and finally, six years later, fate brought me back to
> Denver; this time, a confident blind adult. I was a graduate of the
> center’s independence training program, had been a summer instructor
> in Colorado, and was, soon to be, a fully inducted Corps Member of the
> AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, to serve on the same
> campus as those who first introduced me to the idea of national
> service.
> 
> Soon after returning to my home state of California, I traveled to
> Oregon to start training with my first dog guide. Training was going
> very well, and I had reason to believe that I was going to graduate
> from school. Unfortunately, after a planned meeting designed to
> strategize the best tools and techniques to make the transition for
> the dog guide/handler team a successful one, there came some
> noticeable uneasiness and a lot of questions about what a guide dog
> can do (in addition to the concerns of what a blind person can do) and
> concerns about how much accommodation would have to take place.
> Additionally, the question of if I was” 100% blind or partially blind”
> came up. While it may have been, in their mind, for programmatic
> reasons, I felt like the campus was already assuming what I could or
> could not do. After thinking, and realizing the amount of ignorance
> and uneasiness that people had displayed, I came to understand that
> some educating had to take place and that right now would not be the
> best time for a dog guide. So, with that, I bid farewell to the
> friends I gained and the amazing dog I had began work with and
> returned back to the bay area.
> 
> Once there, I began the process of determining how to best go about
> educating 200 people I’d never met before. All the while, counting
> down the days until I would begin a new and exciting chapter in my
> life; one that only those who are willing to push their limits and are
> confident about their abilities as a person, blind or not, would ever
> attempt.
> 
> CTI
> 
> Corps Training Institute marks the beginning of the AmeriCorps NCCC
> Journey. As a Corps Member, you soon find out that the first couple of
> days are probably the most hectic days one will have in the corps.
> The First days were filled with checking in and meeting your
> roommates, the people on your team, and the people in your unit. I met
> a lot of corps members within the first few hours of my arrival on
> campus. For most of these wonderfully enthusiastic and talented
> individuals, who I would come to know as my corps mates and friends,
> it would be the first time they had ever met a blind person. The same
> could be said for the team leaders, unit leaders and office staff on
> campus, as well.
> 
> During training, Corps Members travel across campus to different
> trainings and meetings, which are put on to prepare corps members for
> the ten months that lie ahead. Some of those trainings are diversity
> trainings, CPR, First Aid and trainings on how to run a Red Cross
> disaster shelter. They also cover rules and regulations regarding the
> program. The very first days served as a sort of test not only for me,
> but also the other people on campus- as it gave me an opportunity to
> show how a person who is blind travels in both familiar and unfamiliar
> areas; among other things. Being a person who had, just two months
> prior to joining NCCC, been teaching blind youth the freedom and sense
> of empowerment that safe and independent travel bring, I felt
> especially confident in my ability to navigate this new environment,
> and felt the need to prove that traveling and problem-solving were
> things I was very capable of doing.
> 
> Campus life is, generally, what u would see in a university. The
> campus has a cafeteria and a set of dorms. I was assigned a single
> room that had a full bathroom and was located by an emergency exit; as
> the staff had a difficult time understanding (after detailed
> explanation) how a blind person can effectively get from the bathroom
> to their room or out of a building given an understanding of its
> layout. So they decided to put me (against my request) in a “more
> accessible room.”
> 
> After a few days of learning about the corps, the campus, and the
> people on it, I approached the Director of the AmeriCorps NCCC campus
> about putting on a one-person meet the blind month event. While it was
> not phrased in that manner, and the conversation was a continuation of
> a conversation I had had with her prior to arrival, it was an idea
> that went over well with her. The event was spread out over the
> duration of our month of training and consisted of meet the blind
> month literature that was displayed in the main dorm lobby, a informal
> introduction to goal ball, a question and answer session during a
> corps wide community meeting, and finally an activity which, in
> keeping with the month long theme, I called “Cane Travel Training.” I
> was very fortunate to have been able to get sleepshades and canes
> loaned out to me by the Colorado Center for the Blind. Let me assure
> you that time and energy put into this activity were time and energy
> well-spent. Corps members, team leaders, and office staff alike
> participated in the series of informal trainings. In these trainings,
> they learned how a blind person safely and effectively navigates both
> familiar and unfamiliar areas and does so with a high degree of
> confidence. They also learned about proper cane technique, how to move
> about in a building, go up and down stairs and travel outdoors. One
> activity that proved to be a highlight was a session that took place
> during my unit’s team bonding time at Rocky Mountain National Park.
> Individuals learned how to navigate rocky paths using a cane while
> listening to the birds and the wind through the trees and feeling the
> sun on their faces. Everyone who took part enjoyed the event, those
> who didn’t, express interest in taking part in the event if there was
> to be another one.
> 
> Once the month of corps wide training and team selection process
> ended, I sat down with my Team Leader, and as is normal practice with
> team leaders and corps members pre- project round, we talked about
> expectations and goals for the upcoming round in Boulder, Colorado. We
> discussed keeping an open line of communication and she stressed to me
> that she understood that at times it may not be as easy interacting
> with individuals who may not allow me to push myself out of my comfort
> zone and try new things on the work site, as they may feel nervous
> about my participation. She also assured me that, while she knew I was
> a self-advocate and supported my advocacy efforts on my own behalf,
> she was going to advocate for me as best she could, as well.
> 
> My team leader grew up with a friend who was blind. This friend is
> currently in law school; and her positive views of blindness clearly
> have pushed her to this point in her education. It is, I believe, this
> personal interaction with a successful blind person which has shaped
> my team leader’s views on blindness, and that has made my team leader
> one of the more open-minded team leaders, relative to disabilities, in
> our corps. She always worked to keep me in the loop on little yet
> important things. As one Example: When I was first arriving on campus,
> I received a folder that was the same as the ones that all of the
> other corps members in my unit had gotten. However, mine had a message
> in Braille welcoming me to the corps. And who wrote it? My team
> leader. She knew Braille. This was a very nice surprise that meant a
> lot to me. She was always there to listen when I was having a tough
> time understanding a situation, or needing to vent. She sometimes did
> not have the answers, but she would not let me give up on myself and
> gave me time to figure out problems, where other people may not have
> had that kind of patience. When it came to being on the work site she
> always took the time to explain its layout and explain how I might go
> about doing something on the site.
> 
> Boulder, Colorado
> 
> My team’s first project was an environmental service project in
> Boulder working with the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain
> Parks. On this project, we worked on building two new hiking trails,
> cleared out a few irrigation ditches, and removed invasive species
> (which really just translates into pulling weeds).
> 
> On most of these projects, it was best to stick with a member of the
> team and work on a part of the project together, as otherwise it got
> rather boring and repetitive quite quickly. When it came to hiking to
> and from some of the sites with rougher uneven paths, I alternated
> between traveling alone and traveling with a human guide. I found that
> walking to the site with someone via human guide was simply a matter
> of keeping pace and having a conversation as well.
> 
> On one of our work sites, I was asked to clear grass patches out of a
> trench. The way I went about this was to first have my cane be stored
> in a safe place by a project sponsor, and then, I would walk along one
> side of the trench, feeling with my foot for broken up patches of
> grass and damp dirt and throw them in an area that was pointed out by
> the sponsor. The project introduced me to new tools that I had never
> used or heard of before, such as a rockbar and mcloud. I was also
> educated as to the socio – economic and recreational considerations
> people must think about when developing or not developing land for
> recreational usage or preservation reasons. I learned a lot about
> Colorado and its water conservation plans, as well.
> 
> During this Round, I visited the Boulder Valley Chapter of the NFB and
> told them about AmeriCorps NCCC and the great benefits of giving back
> to one’s country through national service. As one of my team roles was
> recruiter, the concept of talking-up our program was not too
> unnatural, but the best part of it was letting people know that this
> program is out there and, yes, blind people can be a part of it and do
> great things as well.
> 
> As for my project sponsors, they were all great helps and enabled me
> to learn while learning along with me. The lesson? Given the
> opportunity and training, a person who is blind can do most of the
> same jobs a sighted person can do, and do them just as effectively as
> anybody.
> 
> Brazoria County, Texas
> 
> My team and I went to Brazoria County, Texas and started work with the
> United Way. We were told we were going to be doing canvassing work and
> talking to residents in the community about resources which were
> available to victims of hurricane Ike. This, of course, meant a lot of
> walking and a lot of talking. I had two primary roles on this project.
> While in the field, I mainly did most of the communicating with
> clients, as I have a good skill for relating to people. While away
> from the worksite, I would write out weekly progress reports to keep
> track of where we went and what we did.
> 
> In this round, my skills as a recruiter were taken to new heights.
> Normally, a recruiter on a team will research places that would be
> good to talk to the youth of the community and contact those places
> and set up a time to come in and talk about the program. I would do
> research (via a laptop with JAWS and an internet connection) about
> these places, call them, and get the logistics squared away so an
> event could take place. During This round I, along with different
> members of my team, would go out to high schools as well as work with
> and talk to venture crews to talk-up the program.
> 
> What made this round so special was my ability to be personable and to
> make every aspect of myself and the program a shining positive. One
> thing which generally made otherwise shy people want to find out more
> about the program was when I would mention all of the great aspects of
> the program and all of the great things I’d been able to do as a blind
> person. I don’t know if they joined or considered joining with the
> hopes of meeting a blind person, or if being confident and showing
> your personality makes the program sound like it’s worthwhile. But,
> either way, youth that would not normally have considered the program
> at first glance either seriously considered the program or planned to
> do it as soon as they graduated high school or college. To me, that’s
> a great feeling. I believe that during this round I showed many youth
> that anybody who wants to serve their country can do it; that ability,
> race, creed or anything else does not have to be a reason to not help
> others any chance you get.
> 
> Over this round I learned to work with the skill saw, sawzall, drill,
> axe and nail gun on various construction and debris removal projects.
> The best part of this was that team mates and my team leader had all,
> by this point, taken the time to teach me skills I normally would not
> have thought I would ever be able to learn. As was the case on my
> previous project, the people in the community came in with no idea of
> what to expect out of me. In the end they were some of the best
> teachers and best people I worked with during my Corps year. They
> never over reacted, they were always so nice and helpful to everybody,
> and they treated me as if blindness was the last thing they thought of
> when they saw me.
> 
> Hale County, Alabama
> 
> This Project round presented an opportunity and a bigger challenge
> than most of the others I had worked on. Hale County is the fifth
> poorest county in the country, and the town I lived in was like most
> towns in Alabama, very small and not notable to anyone who didn’t live
> there. The nature of this project was construction work and painting.
> In previous projects I had done both. The biggest challenge was
> convincing a new team leader, team, and the staff back at my base
> campus that I could do these things. Another added challenge was
> convincing them that I could climb scaffolding with ease and
> confidence. Though I could show my team leader and project supervisors
> that I could do the job, the campus management still had their doubts.
> 
> During this round, all AmeriCorps campuses were filling slots for
> their incoming class of team leaders. During this process, I was
> interviewed by four different campuses, who were all considering me
> for open positions. In the end I was not offered a position by any of
> the campuses, with some not even bothering to notify me. One campus
> admitted to altering the general set of questions they ask all their
> candidates, saying they were not confident that I, as a blind person,
> would be able to answer them. It was at this point that I started to
> return to questioning the true belief that this campus and
> organization had in people with disabilities in general and in me as a
> blind person. It seemed to me that they felt a person with a
> disability could certainly become a corps member, but would not be
> able to lead a group of ten young adults on challenging projects. It
> felt to me as if they saw this opportunity as something that someone
> with a disability, especially blindness, could not be trusted to take
> on.
> 
> I continued with the project in Alabama, working with volunteers on a
> piece of history in the area; an old Rosenwald school house that was
> ninety-five years old. I also worked in a local thrift store that
> benefited the community members. Most of my job this round was
> recruitment off the worksite, though I still carried out minimal tasks
> on the site. On hot days, which reached 95 degrees, I found myself
> near hot tin pulling old rusted nails out of old two-by-fours, while
> my team mates were climbing the side of the old school house to nail
> or paint. While one can justify this by saying the work had to get
> done and I was doing a job, I often found myself in just the situation
> I had worked so hard to avoid. I didn’t want to be sitting on the
> sidelines while my teammates got to challenge themselves in ways they
> never thought they’d be challenged.
> 
> This is not to say that I didn’t see some really interesting things. I
> had been to my first crawfish boil, and had been through more tornado
> warnings then I would have liked. There were some truly great people
> who were working to help people in this county change their way of
> life, and I had been fortunate enough to get to know some of the best
> folks in this small county. I learned that housing and education were
> not the only problems the county was facing. I was on a ride-along
> with a post-grad student from the University of Alabama who was
> testing water purity in the area. The student told Me that many
> residents in the county often drink and bathe in darkened water from
> their pipes and never know how unhealthy it is, nor know any
> different. Overall, I think that our Alabama project was a very
> educational time for me. I learned about my country, what we take for
> granted and the challenges we face in closing the gap between the
> haves and have nots.
> 
> Colorado.
> 
> In our fourth project round, I was one of the fortunate few corps
> members to be selected to work in AmeriCorps NCCC’s Summer of Service
> program (the only program of its kind to be run in the country in
> 2009). The Summer of Service program (SOS) gives at risk youth the
> opportunity to serve their local community and gain invaluable skills
> and an awareness of community needs. It also provides a small stipend
> which the youth often use to support their families.
> 
> In the three weeks prior to the youths’ arrival on campus, I, along
> with my team mates took part in training and then a two-week camping
> trip in the mountains of Jamestown, Colorado. Aside from the fun of
> getting to set-up a tent and hike on this project, within these two
> weeks, my new team and I worked on moving tree limbs to the side of
> the road to be gathered. Most of this involved dragging limbs from
> down a hillside (or “hauling slash”), and using my cane with my left
> arm, sometimes following the voices of my team mates. One fun thing I
> did was use a hydraulic wood-splitter. This machine was designed as an
> easier, less labor intensive way to split wood.
> 
> After the two weeks of work and bonding were complete, we returned to
> Denver and got ready for the Participants. Once the program started, I
> was asked to serve as a crew leader with three other co-crew leaders
> overseeing a team of seven to ten youth. Crew leaders had the
> responsibility to supervise the Participants, making sure that they
> stayed on task on the work site and maintained safe habits and
> respectful manners both on and off of the work site. It was always a
> bit of a challenge with the Participants, as they would often
> challenge my abilities as a supervisor. They worked hard and it was
> rewarding to see what great young people they grew into over just one
> month.
> 
> Three short weeks later, it was time for each corps member who had
> made it through the long and challenging journey of an AmeriCorps year
> to look around, look ahead, and say goodbye to the family that they
> had for ten months. I, to this day, will never forget the feeling of
> crossing the stage and thinking, “This is it! All of the challenges I
> faced, all of the friends I found, all of the places I’ve gone and
> experiences I’ve had … this is it.” I had finally completed a journey
> that on more than one occasion, I had considered walking away from.
> But in the end, when I heard in the crowd the roar of applause that
> was lead by the very Summer of Service Participants that we helped to
> graduate just weeks before, I felt so many things. When I stopped to
> consider it I felt finality, pride, and accomplishment. I had
> completed this program with so many people whom I had grown to care
> for and respect, and who had grown to respect me. On that day I felt
> like I did change what it means to be blind in the National Civilian
> Community Corps, a program where blindness was truly uncharted
> territory.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Darian Smith
> 
> "To dream what is possible and to put oneself in service of that dream is the
> formula
> for a life well lived."
> 
> - Dr. Peter Benson
> 
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