[Massachusetts-NFB] Parents' Division April Meeting Minutes

[Liz Lesperance]

Good Afternoon,

I have attached and pasted below the minutes from our most recent Parents'
Division meeting held last Thursday, April 13th. I have also attached the 2
state-level right to parent bills that have been introduced to the House
and Senate which Justin Salisbury shared with us a couple weeks ago. Our
next meeting will be held via zoom on Thursday, May 11th at 6:00PM.

Best Regards,
Liz

************

The MA Organization of Parents of Blind Children held their April monthly
meeting on Thursday, April 13th. The meeting began at 6:07PM. Those in
attendance included:

Hai Nguyen Ly

Jennifer Bose

Liz Lesperance

Shara Winton

Stephanie Valdes

Youme Nguyen



Hai recited the NFB pledge

For an icebreaker, we shared our favorite activity to do as a family in
spring.

Youme went over the March meeting minutes. Hai put forth a motion to
approve the minutes as read, which Liz seconded. The minutes were approved.

Stephanie discussed upcoming fundraising options for our group. She found a
company that, like Double Good, sells coffee and shares a percentage of
sales with the group. We are planning on holding a fundraiser in the
beginning of June. Stephanie will research this fundraiser further.

Hai raised the topic of the MCB's request for parents to reach out and
lobby for greater funds for their child services program. Jenn will reach
out to Inky for a status on their request from March. At the moment we will
table this issue.

Stephanie gave us an update on the proposed Parents' Rights bill. All
members should read both bills that Justin Salisbury emailed us on the day
of the MCB rally. The bills are attached to this email. The national office
has reviewed these bills and gave Justin the green light to move forward.
Justin has been reaching out to the people that have created these bills to
forge a connection with the NFB. The bill is disability-centric as opposed
to blind-centric. We resolved to have the bills read by Friday, April 21st.

We would like to hold an in-person meeting among members of our division
sometime over the summer. Please share any suggestions you have. We are a
geographically dispersed group so a convenient location will be the first
step.

We discussed extra-curricular and transportation struggles as well as
encouraging kids to get out and get involved. It can be tricky finding
transportation to and from afterschool activities. We discussed strategies
to address this such as finding another parent to carpool with and ways to
provide a return favor such as free babysitting or gas money.

The mentorship group that was at our state convention would like to come
talk to us about recruiting new mentors and mentis. We agreed to make time
in our May meeting for them to speak.

We again discussed the idea of creating a pamphlet for our division that
can be distributed to associated groups and individuals interested in
getting involved.

 Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, May 11th, at 6:00PM.

The meeting adjourned at 7:08PM.
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