[il-talk] Update: Great Lakes BRAL Contest

[Robert Gardner]

The Great Lakes Braille Readers Are Leaders (BRAL) contest for kids is now underway. Registration started on November 1, and the children, K-12, have started to count the Braille pages they have read for recreation since December 1. The contest will run for seven weeks with prizes given for the most Braille pages read in five different grade levels. 



The NFB of Illinois has been instrumental in setting up this regional contest, a contest involving all eight Great Lakes states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. 



After the nationwide BRAL contest run by our national headquarters ended in 2011, there was no BRAL contest for kids for two years. To fill this gap Illinois decided to run its own BRAL contest for kids within the state in 2013-14. We did that for two years, then had Minnesota join us for the 2015-16 contest. Now the NFB of Illinois has been the leading force in putting together the Great Lakes regional contest for 2016-17. 



As of this date we have 32 registrations for the contest. Debbie Stein is the administrator of the contest and deserves much thanks for taking on that task. 



Robert Gardner

Braille Literacy Committee