[Community-service] (no subject)

[Jonathan Franks]

Hello all,
 hope you are doing well. As it is now November 1st, Meet the Blind
Month has come and past. SO, I was wondering what you, your
chapter/affiliate/division or group of friends/ colleagues did?

A few examples from the Austin Chapter of the National Federation of
the Blind of Texas are:

Volunteering with the Boys and Girls Club: One of our chapter members
is employed there and they read braille stories to the children,
utilized the new tactile art kit from the Action fund and talked about
guide dog handling with the children.
Volunteering at The Thinkery: The Thinkery is a STEAM focussed
interactive Children's museum where myself and another chapter member
is employed. I along with 4 other chapter members brought Perkin's
Braillers, Slate and Styllus, a laptop with Jaws installed, a Victor
reader and the Museum provided Braille children's books, braille
blocks with numbers on them, letter and number magnets with braille,
a board that had crayons with the braille in front of it assigning
what color it was. We talked about braille, wrote their names and gave
them braille alphabet cards, demonstrated how Jaws and a audio book
being played by a Victor reader works, how to use a cane and
introduced them to guide dogs. We also had one of our members read a
couple of children's books during one of the museum's story times for
the little kiddos.

We also planned and are  sending two of our members to a nursing home
to help introduce some of their clients with cognitive functionability
impairments  that are blind to basic blindness training.

I would love to hear what you all have done this past month.

Warm regards,

Jonathan Franks BSW
Board Member
National Federation of the Blind of Texas
Vice Chairman
Mayor's Committee for People with Disabilities in Austin, Texas
Graduate Student
MSW Program
Texas State University

-- 
The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the
characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the
expectations of blind people, because low expectations create
obstacles between blind people  and our dreams. You can live the life
you want; blindness is not what holds you back.