[Community-Service] California high school football team members, staff carry man in wheelchair up Fremont's Mission Peak - ABC30 Fresno

[Darian Smith]

Good Afternoon,
Thank you for sharing this  article.
 This article makes me think of a number of things.
 On one hand, I think of the experience Felipe get's to have  due to the literal support from others, he gets to experience a view that he might not have otherwise, and a memory he probably doesn’t soon forget.
 On the other hand,I am not sure if the article gives us an idea of the conversation that took place between members of the football team, Felipe, and his family.
 Did the team offer help? Did Felipe ask for help? Did Felipe really want to climb to the summit? Or did he believe that he had to accept the help offered to him simply because it was offered? Was the decision really truly up to him?  Or did the football team and his family engage in a conversation about him without including him? Did he want to be a subject of a good deed posted in the news for the whole world to see?

 As so many of us know, as blind people living in the world, interacting with well meaning people in our daily lives,  it’s not at all uncommon   to come across people who really want to help us.
   sometimes it is help  we think we can benefit from so we take it, other times it is help we never asked for and don’t see a need for  but it is forced on us despite us communicating this.
Those who don’t have the experience with blindness and  don’t understand what blind people can do would tell the blind person who doesn’t want the help that they are ungrateful, or try to guild us with the timeless line “I was only trying to help you” thinking that we were oblivious  to what they were trying to do, and if we just knew that we would have eagerly   and appreciatively taken the help.
What if the story was not of a person in a wheelchair?  What if it was a blind person, standing a few feed from   the street corner, resting  after taking a  nice job down the block?  What if someone who saw the blind person   approached them and pulled the  person to the  intersection and across the street without asking the blind person if they needed help?  What if that person  then shared a story in the local paper about their good deed of the day?would this have been acceptable to us if we had seen it posted on this list?  Would we consider it community service?
 We must  understand the difference between community service and charity, even as it is being done to us or our brothers and sisters in the disability community.
And we must take care to insure that what we communicate in the blogs, articles and other media we share is consistent with the  aims and goals of our division as outlined in our  constitution  and make sure that we are consistently on brand with our messaging  and in alignment with our organization’s philosophy.
 This is of particular importance  as we are a public list, and we represent the National Federation of the Blind when we communicate  our messaging.
  Respectfully,
  Darian Smith
Immediate Past President, National Federation of the Blind, Community Service Division 
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> On Aug 12, 2020, at 3:06 PM, lashawna fant via Community-Service <community-service at nfbnet.org> wrote:
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> https://abc30.com/james-logan-high-school-students-carry-man-up-mission-peak-football-players/6363947/
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