[il-talk] FW: Article from Braille Monitor Articles Section 2019 03 01

[Pat and Don]

Marylou, I enjoyed your speech, but I also was thrilled to see it in the Monitor and be able to read it again.
Pat Olson

________________________________
From: IL-Talk <il-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> on behalf of Mary lou Grunwald via IL-Talk <il-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 2, 2019 8:30 AM
To: NFB of Illinois Mailing List
Cc: Mary lou Grunwald; Illinois Association of Blind Students List
Subject: Re: [il-talk] FW: Article from Braille Monitor Articles Section 2019 03 01

For those individuals in the NFB of my generation, having an article published in the braille monitor that you had something to do with is quite an honor!

Sent from my iPad

> On 2 Mar 2019, at 6:19 AM, Denise Avant via IL-Talk <il-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> This article features comments by a great federationist.
>
>
>
>
>
> Denise R. Avant, Esq.
>
> President,
>
> National Federation of the Blind of Illinois
>
> 773-991-8050
>
> Live the life you want.
>
>
>
> For more information about NFBI,
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> Go to www.nfbofillinois.org<http://www.nfbofillinois.org>
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>
> From: NFB-NEWSLINE Online <publications at nfbnewsline.net>
> Sent: Saturday, March 2, 2019 6:09 AM
> To: Denise Avant <davant1958 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Article from Braille Monitor Articles Section 2019 03 01
>
>
>
> A Network of Support From the Editor: Longtime NFB of Illinois member Mary
> Lou Grunwald delivered the following presentation at the joint luncheon for
> vendors and students on October 27, 2018. I'm so excited to be at an event
> like this. It's kind of a dream come true for me. I'm up here because I was
> asked to speak about one very specific reason why I'm in the NFB. There are
> many reasons why I'm involved, but this is a story many of you may not know.
> For a little background, one of the early successes of the NFBI was that we,
> along with our national office, advocated with the National Labor Relations
> Board (NLRB) to reclassify sheltered workshops as factories and not as
> rehabilitation institutions. As a result, the NLRB took jurisdiction over
> union organizing efforts at the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. In 1976 I
> was in my early twenties. I wasn't able to go to college, so my first stop
> in my career journey was the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. At that time
> it was not the place that it is today. They paid subminimum wages, and they
> had substandard working conditions. I worked in the factory making big ones
> out of little ones, a shorthand for assembling chemistry sets and
> switchboard plugs. It was tough work for very little money, but my mom and I
> needed that money desperately. I had recently gotten to know the NFB and had
> become involved with the Chicago chapter. Through our involvement with the
> NFB some of us at the Lighthouse started trying to form a union there. We
> worked very hard on it with the support and the guidance of the chapter and
> of the state and national NFB, and also the help of the Teamsters Union.
> Unfortunately we lost by only a couple of votes because of some ugly scare
> tactics that were going on. I'm not at all sorry I did it. It was wonderful
> experience that prepared me for things I did later on. But when I got home,
> the reality set in. I had done something that I thought was very important,
> but now I had no job, and Mom and I had very little money. My mother was
> very upset with me because I had done all of this advocacy. I started trying
> to figure out my next career move. And while I was working on that,
> something started happening. I started getting envelopes in the mail. These
> envelopes had people's names on them, people I didn't recognize. When I
> opened them I found checks, checks from people, and I didn't know who the
> heck they were. I thought, who could this be? What is this? Then I
> recognized a couple of the names, and I realized that these checks came from
> Federationists all over the country who were supporting me! People I had
> never met in my life were sending me money to help support me! That
> experience solidified my desire to be helpful in this organization at
> whatever level my talents would allow. That's one of the reasons I'm in the
> NFB. Thank you!.
>
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