[Nfb-krafters-korner] Partially OT: Origami and NFB State Con Highlights

[Terrence van Ettinger]

Hello there!
 	We had our state NFB convention today and I just had to share a 
few highlights, one crafting-related and the other just plain awesome! So 
I'll start with the crafting stuff first. '-)
As some of you may know, I pretty much need to be always doing 
*SOMETHING*. Well of course, these conventions tend to have a lot of 
sitting in one place just listening for quite a while. My solution: 
origami. I brought a fair bit of origami material with me, and one crane 
that I finished up first thing while I was there that became a door prize. 
It was most of a piece of wide Braille paper, with "nfbak" brailled on it 
over and over again, filling the page. I finished that one fairly quickly, 
and continued on with other various and sundry models. By the time pizza 
and karaoke came around, I had a couple boxes, a few cranes, a  swan, and 
a few pyramids all sitting out in front of me. The kids were all intrigued 
with it all, and one asked me for a fortune teller, another wanted a 
square box with a lid. By the end of the evening, I suggested to our 
chapter president that this might be an activity to do in conjunction with 
the parents' division. So I'll probably be talking to the local NOPBC 
chapter president about doing an origami session. '-)
Now, the not-quite-crafting-related awesomeness: The same NOPBC president 
I was just referring to, along with her sixth-grade daughter, came up with 
the idea to have a community service project at convention. So after 
lunch, we all trooped a short way down the hall to where an assembly line 
was set up, and made I have no idea HOW many supply bags to share with the 
homeless of our state...socks, granola bar, crackers, juice, etc. Stuff 
that could easily be carried, say, on a bus trip, in a car, etc. and 
offered to people in need. I know for a fact that there were *WAY* more 
bags than there were people, because I was able to take a large paper 
shopping bag full of them for when I'm walking around in some of the areas 
I frequent that have a fair-sized homeless population. And the youth were 
all enthusiastic about the project from start to finish! It was inspiring 
to stand there, working with a whole group of blind folks from across the 
state, all ages and walks of life, working to make even a brief difference 
in the lives of people in need. It's definitely one convention agenda item 
I'm not going to forget!!

Terrence, wowed but ready to sleep.

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