[il-talk] ABLE Group is "Team of the Year"!

[Robert Gardner]

Hi Everyone

As you probably know, the ABLE (Access to Braille Literacy for Everyone) Group was formed out of the Blackhawk Chapter a year and a half ago.  The goal was to promote the reading and writing of Braille by meeting weekly to do both reading and writing together.  

Last fall, the NFB Braille Readers Are Leaders contest sponsored, for the first time, an adult category -- and also a team category.  The ABLE Group decided to enter the contest as a team, with five people on the team:  Bob Gardner, Lois Montgomery, Jana Hergert, Patrick Olson, and Jean Rauschenbach.  We set a team goal for the number of pages we would collectively read, then went at it.  

Along the way, Lois Montgomery won the nationwide award as the first place reader in the Beginner adult category (80 words per minute or less), reading around 3000 pages in the two months of the contest.  And of course, our collective team goal of pages read far exceeded our original goal.  

Then at the end of last week, I got a package in the mail.  When I opened it, I found a plaque and some paperwork -- all that telling that the ABLE Group had been selected as the "Team of the Year" award!  Wow, what a surprise, and what an honor.  

Once again, Illinois rocks!  

Bob