[Community-service] My #NFB911 story

[Jonathan Franks]

Greetings Fellow Federationists,
I wanted to share my #NFB911 experience. I work for the Boys and Girls
club as one of their Program Specialists. One of my responsibilities
is to assist the children during Power Hour. This is when they spend
half of the hour working on their schoolwork and half of their time
working on their reading comprehension. Many of them are amazed that a
blind person is able to help them with their homework, I inform them
of the vast amount of capabilities that blind people have, and I have
introduced them to braille and other assistive technologies that we
use. Typically on Tuesdays, the 4th graders I work with take part in a
STEM class where they are learning coding. The instructor lets them
borrow iPADS and I turned on VoiceOver on  one of them to show them
how VoiceOver works. Since none of them were alive during the tragic
day of September 11, 2001, I was able to give them a history lesson
about that fateful day. I even told them about the story of Michael
Hingson and his guide dog thunder who escaped the buildings as they
were falling. Even though I am in a paid position, I am volunteering
my experiences, knowledge, passion and love to help educate and shape
the minds of young children. Monday through Friday, I am instilling a
positive attitude for these children to learn to accept people with
disabilities as equals and to learn about how blind people live their
daily lives. It takes a person to land a job, but it takes a dedicated
individual to put their energy and effort into a job or volunteer
position to truly reap from its benefits and give back towards
whichever particular clientele they are working with in their chosen
field.

I look forward to hearing more #NFB911 stories and other stories of
how you help your communities

Warm regards,

Jonathan Franks BSW
Treasurer
National Federation of the Blind Community Service Division
Co-chairperson
NFB of Texas Community Service Committee


-- 
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.