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<div class="content-centered"><h1 class="post-title"><a>April_2024_Release_Chapter_Version_Final6m2a7</a></h1><div class="transcript-line">Greetings, fellow Federationists.<br/><br/>Today is Wednesday, April 3, 2024, and this is presidential release number 537, mostly live from the Louisiana Center for the Blind. - There you go! - There you go.<br/><br/>There you go.<br/><br/>Yeah, we got a little bit of them.<br/><br/>I stepped on them accidentally.<br/><br/>They are out there, and I could not make it to the Louisiana Center for this release.<br/><br/>I'm gonna talk about that a little later, but it is great to have Federationists gathered at our Louisiana Center for the Blind.<br/><br/>You know, our training centers have, since the middle of the 1980s, been a key part of the ecosystem that we have to raise expectations for blind people in this country.<br/><br/>So looking forward to that continued conversation.<br/><br/>I do want to start this release by thanking Federationists all over the country for reaching out to our national office here in Baltimore about the recent collapse of the Key Bridge, which is, you know, about nine miles or so from our building.<br/><br/>Fortunately, none of our staff members were directly impacted by this tragedy, but a huge impact on the Baltimore community.<br/><br/>Certainly has an impact on our members and transportation in the area and many other aspects of our day-to-day life here in Baltimore.<br/><br/>So thank you to all of you who reached out.<br/><br/>We are glad that at least our Federation community, everybody is safe, but obviously some tragic loss here in our Baltimore community that we're continuing to work through and will be working through for a number of years to come.<br/><br/>We did have a busy March, and one of the activities was to hold our 16th annual Jacobus Tenbrook Disability Law Symposium, another great success where we're bringing together disability rights advocates, the legal scholars to talk about how we drive, as people with disabilities, how we drive the direction of disability law in this country.<br/><br/>A lot of great conversations.<br/><br/>Another successful event.<br/><br/>And so I would encourage all of you who are interested in disability rights law to think about being present for our next law symposium next year.<br/><br/>When we're thinking about events, though, the event on our mind right now is our national convention.<br/><br/>And I want to remind you again, nfb.org/convention for any and all things related to the 2024 national convention that will be in Orlando, Florida.<br/><br/>Now, this month, I want to talk to you about some new activities being undertaken by our DeafBlind division.<br/><br/>The president of that division is Maurice Mines, and he's asked me to share with you that our DeafBlind division is coordinating volunteers at the convention to assist with ensuring that DeafBlind members requiring some additional support to fully participate in the convention can do so.<br/><br/>And so if you're interested, I would add to Maurice's urging and urge you to volunteer as well.<br/><br/>Maurice says that volunteers are needed to serve as special service support providers during the convention, interested individuals who would like to fill this role during the convention and want to help out should fill out the questionnaire, that's the survey form that's on our website.<br/><br/>It includes four simple questions in addition to basic contact information.<br/><br/>That form can be found at, no surprise, nfb.org/convention under the SSP volunteer link on that page, SSP volunteer.<br/><br/>If you just do your jump to link, you'll find it.<br/><br/>The division will be working to match volunteers with DeafBlind individuals, preferably from the same affiliate, that's the goal.<br/><br/>And those who have experience with tactile sign are even more strongly encouraged to volunteer their time so that we can make sure to support those DeafBlind individuals that require tactile sign.<br/><br/>All volunteers, as you would expect, are expected to adhere to the Federation's code of conduct and all volunteers will be asked to participate in a training at the convention on July 3rd at 10 a.m.<br/><br/>Of course, location is not determined yet.<br/><br/>I'm sure if for some reason you can't be at the training, they'll be able to work some alternatives out, but I definitely would encourage you to be at the training if you're going to volunteer.<br/><br/>The deadline to express interest in volunteering is May 31st.<br/><br/>Coincidentally, the same deadline that we cut off online registration for the convention.<br/><br/>And if you're a DeafBlind individual and you would like to benefit from this support, you are certainly encouraged to do that.<br/><br/>You should send an email and the email should have this subject line or something close to it.<br/><br/>Subject line, "I am requesting volunteer SSP assistance at the 2024 National Convention."<br/><br/>And you should send that email directly to Maurice Mines at this email address.<br/><br/>Hold on, it's a long one.<br/><br/>All one word, PresidentDeafBlindNFB.<br/><br/>All one word, PresidentDeafBlindNFB@maurysmines.org.<br/><br/>That's M-A-U-R-I-C-E-M-I-N-E-S.org.<br/><br/>You can certainly find Maurice's contact information on the website related to our DeafBlind division.<br/><br/>And I want to take a moment to thank our DeafBlind division.<br/><br/>You know, we're an organization that believes that as blind people, we should speak for ourselves and define for ourselves what's needed.<br/><br/>And the fact that the DeafBlind division has taken ownership of defining what enhancements would be needed and charging forward with that and working with our national leaders to make that happen is truly in the spirit of what we do in the National Federation of the Blind.<br/><br/>So I encourage you to volunteer if you're in a position to do so.<br/><br/>There are a number of other convention things to talk about.<br/><br/>I'm just going to talk about a few.<br/><br/>One of them is from our partner, the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults, where we, the Action Fund, will again be sponsoring the Braille Book Fair at this year's convention in Orlando.<br/><br/>This is a great opportunity for individuals to come by and get their hands on Braille books that others have donated.<br/><br/>The book fair is scheduled for July 5, traditional time.<br/><br/>And the Action Fund would like to encourage those who have books that they would like to donate to the book fair to keep a few things in mind.<br/><br/>The first is that those books should be gently used.<br/><br/>They should still be good enough for someone to put on their bookshelf.<br/><br/>The book fair is seeking books for readers at all levels and in most genres.<br/><br/>The book fair does not accept these types of materials, Bibles, magazines or textbooks.<br/><br/>Sorry if you have an old calculus book you wanted to give to the book fair.<br/><br/>The Action Fund notes that it is especially seeking Twin Vision titles or Braille print titles, if you want to think of them that way.<br/><br/>Also kindergarten and first grade level books and cookbooks.<br/><br/>So those are some of the areas where books are especially needed for donation if you have them.<br/><br/>If you have more than five books that you would like to send to the book fair, the Action Fund requests that you please reach out about your books before sending them.<br/><br/>You can do that via email and have a dialogue about the books that you have.<br/><br/>That way the Action Fund can make sure that the books you're sending are actually going to get used in the Braille book fair.<br/><br/>You can send your list of books that you intend to send and want to vet with the Action Fund or just simply send your questions to bookfair@actionfund.org.<br/><br/>I should also mention that donations should be mailed to the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults, Attention Braille Book Fair, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland, 21230.<br/><br/>And the Action Fund would like to thank you in advance for your donations.<br/><br/>I should say that I am confident the Action Fund as well as our National Organization of Parents of Blind Children would love your volunteer help to set up and put on the book fair at the convention.<br/><br/>There's always a degree of work to put out the books and make sure kids especially get steered to the books they want and then box up the books and get them sent out.<br/><br/>It's a great time.<br/><br/>You should volunteer.<br/><br/>And if you have some great books that you are looking to have a great home for, this is a wonderful program for that.<br/><br/>Now, the next convention announcement comes from our National Association of Guide Dog Users, and that is that NAGDU is excited to announce that the division will again be offering National Convention support sponsorship for two Guide Dog User Teams in the amount of $500.<br/><br/>You do not have to be a NAGDU member to apply for the support to attend the 2024 National Convention.<br/><br/>NAGDU does ask that you please read over the sponsorship details, including the application requirements carefully before you apply.<br/><br/>The links to the sponsorship information page and online application can be found at nagdu.org/sponsorship.<br/><br/>And again, that's nagdu.org/sponsorship.<br/><br/>Thanks to NAGDU for supporting getting people to the convention.<br/><br/>Also, applications for our 2024 Teacher of Tomorrow program are now open and available, and I would encourage Federation members to promote our Teacher of Tomorrow program.<br/><br/>This is an immersive professional development program connecting teachers of blind students to the lived experience of blind people themselves.<br/><br/>This program is aimed at individuals who are studying to be teachers of blind students or who have been teachers in the field of blindness for five years or less.<br/><br/>The deadline for our next cohort of the Teacher of Tomorrow program is May 3rd, so it's coming up, and I just want to note, especially this program is open to everybody, but I would note that one interesting thing is that we do need more blind people working and seeking careers in teaching blind students, so I would just call that out here on this release, but this program, of course, is open to anybody in the teaching area working with blind students.<br/><br/>You can find information about the Teacher of Tomorrow program and the application for this cohort by going to nfb.org.<br/><br/>Now, I have a couple of advocacy notes here on this release, and the first comes from the group working in our Center of Excellence for Non-Visual Access, or CENA, where we have established a new toolkit for leveraging the experience of blind people with inaccessible technologies.<br/><br/>This is our self-advocacy toolkit and tracking form for non-visual accessibility.<br/><br/>This is a new toolkit that's now available at our website.<br/><br/>You can find it by going to nfb.org/cena, that's C-E-N-A, and this new toolkit is intended to give members of the Federation tools and tips and resources for effectively addressing and engaging with companies regarding accessibility issues.<br/><br/>I think we all know that we run into those, well, multiple times in a day.<br/><br/>Besides the toolkit, you can also find a webinar there providing further resources and demonstrating some of the support of the toolkit, as well as an inaccessibility tracking form.<br/><br/>This is a new tool that we've put together to encourage members to report inaccessible websites to us at the national level, and we can use that data to track trends and to follow up with companies and also in our advocacy and legal work.<br/><br/>Many of you may already know that we have done this specifically in the past with educational technologies, along with our national organization of parents of blind children.<br/><br/>So this inaccessibility form is specifically and more broadly to website accessibility.<br/><br/>We want you to report those things by the way that data will also be important as we continue to seek a bill in Congress to address these issues.<br/><br/>So this new toolkit is meant to help leverage the experience that we have and create some new opportunities for us to follow up on accessibility.<br/><br/>So I'd encourage you to go to the toolkit resources, check them out.<br/><br/>If you think of ways we can make them even better, please share that.<br/><br/>But also please use the inaccessibility tracking form so we can gather some new data toward our mission of making America a fully inclusive place for blind people.<br/><br/>Speaking of fully inclusive and advocacy, Federationists will know that, well, not just in the past years, for a long time, but certainly in the past years, we've been having a lot of conversation about employers that are illegally requiring driver's licenses in their job application process.<br/><br/>To combat this, we've been doing a number of things, but one of them is been having a conversation with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and working with the EEOC.<br/><br/>They have asked us to encourage members to file as many charges of discrimination as possible when we come across examples of a driver's license being required, even though it's not an essential function of a job.<br/><br/>If you think you've found one of these and you want assistance, please reach out to our legal program coordinator, Sanjo Steele-Lachar, and he will help you begin that process.<br/><br/>Sanjo can be reached at legal@nfb.org and by calling our national office, 410-659-9314 and dialing extension 2440.<br/><br/>Now, as long as we're talking about advocacy, it's not too early to at least put something on our calendar for 2025.<br/><br/>And that is our Washington seminar, which will take place from Monday, February 3rd, through Thursday, February 6th, 2025.<br/><br/>Please put it on your calendar.<br/><br/>We will again be headquartered at the Holiday Inn, Washington Capital, I think you know the address, 550 C Street, Southwest.<br/><br/>And of course, this means that our great gathering in will be on Monday, February 3rd.<br/><br/>It's a long way off, but make sure to put it on your calendar now so you can plan to be with us for the next congressional session.<br/><br/>I do have a number of unfortunate passings to talk to you about, and the first is from Louisiana, where Pam Allen shares the passing of Maddie Dixon, long-time NFB of Louisiana member and mother of Gerald Dixon.<br/><br/>Maddie passed away on March 30th.<br/><br/>Gerald is a dedicated president of our Northeast chapter of the NFB of Louisiana, and Maddie was a long-time friend and supporter of the blind of Louisiana and the nation.<br/><br/>From Montana, I regret to tell you of the passing of Dar Aldrich on Thursday, February 15th, 2024.<br/><br/>Dar was an active member of the Montana affiliate since she moved there in the early part of this century, and she is survived by her husband of almost 19 years, Jim Aldrich, who has been a leader at various levels in our affiliate in Montana and currently is an affiliate board member.<br/><br/>From New Mexico, Adelmo Vigil shares with us that Joe Cordova passed away on March 20th, 2024.<br/><br/>Adelmo notes that Joe was a long-time leader in the New Mexico affiliate and had an impact by mentoring people from all over the United States.<br/><br/>Adelmo also says that Joe was one of the people who encouraged Adelmo to get involved in the National Federation of the Blind, and Adelmo says he expresses his great sadness that Joe is no longer with us.<br/><br/>Also from New Mexico, I wanna share the passing of Jack Munson early in the morning of Saturday, March 9th, 2024.<br/><br/>You should keep Pat Munson, a long-time Federation leader in your thoughts and prayers.<br/><br/>Also from Georgia, I regret to share the passing of Raphael Lewis, who passed away on Thursday, March 28th, 2024.<br/><br/>You should especially keep Raphael's siblings, Patrice Lewis and Anil Lewis, who are also leaders in our Georgia affiliate in your thoughts and prayers.<br/><br/>And as we're talking about losses in the Federation, I do wanna share my appreciation for the Federation community reaching out to me just today.<br/><br/>I learned earlier today that my father, Sebastian Riccobono, passed away.<br/><br/>He was not active in the Federation, but he did support the work that we did and do, and as an individual who served in the United States military he had a great appreciation for our disabled veteran community.<br/><br/>So I'm here today at this release wearing my Blinded Veterans Navy dog tag in honor of my dad, and I appreciate the great sympathies that have been sent from Federationists all over the country.<br/><br/>Now I do have a joyous piece of news to share with you on this release that comes from Norma Crosby of Texas, and that is on March 8th, Aria Christiana Rose Franks came into the world weighing six pounds and nine ounces and measuring 18 inches long.<br/><br/>Aria is the daughter of our Austin chapter president, Jonathan Franks, and his wife, Ashley, who is a leader in her own right.<br/><br/>Norma notes that she is so proud to share this information with the Federation family, and she says that everybody's doing fine, and so I'd like to welcome the newest member of the National Federation of the Blind.<br/><br/>Congratulations to the Frank family. - Thank you again, everyone, for being with us tonight.<br/><br/>And please join us for the next presidential release on Wednesday, May 1st at 8 p.m.<br/><br/>Eastern via Zoom, Nations Blind YouTube channel, our internet stream, or by asking your Amazon device to open Nations Blind.<br/><br/>You can contact President Riccobono at 410-659-9314 or via email at officeofthepresident@nfb.org.<br/><br/>Thank you again so much for being with us this evening.<br/><br/>And President Riccobono, we will turn it back over to you, and we're really also excited to have Stephanie with us.<br/><br/>So we'll be very excited to have to share with her this weekend too. - Excellent.<br/><br/>Thank you, Pam, and again, thank you to our, everybody at the Louisiana Center for the Blind.<br/><br/>Sorry to miss you on this time around, but we will make an opportunity happen soon.<br/><br/>That is what I have for this April presidential release.<br/><br/>And we have kind of a different sort of customary ending.<br/><br/>Our Louisiana Center for the Blind hosted the Braille Challenge recently.<br/><br/>And the center submitted to me a little, I call it a monologue from one of the blind students that participated.<br/><br/>And the audio's not Will Schwatka quality exactly, but I thought it was pretty interesting.<br/><br/>And so I'm gonna offer it to you here as a customary ending, also as a tongue-in-cheek commentary about some of the problems that blind students face.<br/><br/>This young student you may see on the comedy circuit one of these times, maybe we'll have a late night show hosted by a blind person in the future.<br/><br/>I don't know.<br/><br/>But here for our customary endings is Caroline Benoit from Louisiana.<br/><br/>Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind. - Then my school called me the Braille Wiz because I'm the only one who knows Braille. (audience laughing) So when my mom goes to her IEP meeting at my school, she gets all stressed and I wonder why, because it's not like they're gonna follow it anyway. (audience laughing) The best thing about Braille is that me and my mom can write in code because I can say all the words.<br/><br/>I can say all types of things about my dad and he doesn't even know a thing. (audience laughing) Another cool thing about Braille is that my parents think they're all smart and all by turning off the lights at bedtime.<br/><br/>But what they don't know is that I can just grab a Braille book and read it after bedtime in the dark. (audience laughing) Life is like an ice cream cone.<br/><br/>And enjoy it before it melts. (audience laughing) - The preceding message was brought to you by Mark Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind, 410-659-9314.<br/><br/>Office of the President at nfb.org.<br/><br/>Follow President Riccobono on Mastodon.<br/><br/>Just search for @President@nfb.social.<br/><br/>Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]</div><br/></div>
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