[nabs-l] Vee Gaspa for NABS 1st Vice President

[Mikayla Gephart]

Hi all,
     I hope you are all looking forward to national convention, and the NABS Business Meeting in particular. With national convention comes elections, national board elections, NABS board elections, and other division elections. With all these things going on, I wanted to take the time to share with the membership why I think Vee Gaspa should be voted 1st Vice President. When my family moved to North Carolina from New Jersey in June of 2015, the two things my parents promised me were that we would come back to NJ for my favorite summer camp that I have attended since I was 7 years old, and that we would attend the 2015 NFBNJ state convention. While I was at the state convention, I met Vee Gaspa, who had relocated to NJ to attend college. We had a few quick meetings, but I really got to see her dedication to our movement firsthand at the NJABS meeting. At this meeting, she was running for the office of President of the New Jersey Association of Blind Students (NJABS.) I could tell from the start that Vee was dedicated to our movement, and had some great ideas of her own. After convention, I reached out to Vee to let her know that even though I am currently in NC, I am always a phone call, text, or email away. It can be daunting taking over a division when you are still new to the area, but Vee has taken it all in stride. Since than, I have attended a few NJABS conference calls, and I have not been let down. At that first NJABS meeting, a few of our previous leaders said that we had not had a student seminar in a while and it would be great to have another one. Vee has organized people from different states to create student seminars. I have not been able to attend any of the seminars, but the ideas seemed like good ones. The first seminar that Vee put together was at the College of New Jersey, and was hosted by a few other states as well. The second one was at the NFB national center, and it looked like a great event as well. We have two great candidates running, but Vee Gaspa has came so far in these past two years, and we need to encourage her and help her to go further and further, and bring NABS, NJABS, the NFB of NJ, and the NFB as an organization with her as she travels further and further in her leadership, mentorship, and in “changing what it means to be blind.” While I am a North Carolina resident, I consider myself a “Member at Heart (MAH) of the NFBNJ and of NJABS. Even if I did not have the connection of being from NJ, I still would strongly believe that she would be a great NABS 1st Vice President. Thank you for your consideration, and I can not wait to see you all in Orlando.
Yours in the movement,
Mikayla Gephart
Member of the NFB of NC and the North Carolina Association of Blind Students
Member At Heart of NJABS and the NFBNJ