[Nfbf-l] Daytona's dining in the Dark!

[Kathy Davis]

Dear Peter, 
	Thank you so much for your accolades. I am so happy you and Jean
could be present along with other members of the Greater Daytona Beach
Chapter. Deanie and I, as co-chairs, worked for hours and hours to get our
inaugural Dining in the Dark in place. Ronee Silverman, Executive Director
of CVI, was a big support to us. The truly wonderful thing is that when the
lights slowly went up following our dining experience in pitch black
darkness, there wasn't a single sighted participant who did not love this
most unusual fundraiser. In fact, person after person came to me and said
things like: "This is the best fundraiser I have ever attended." "Kathy and
Deanie, this has to be the first of many DID events as this event is going
to grow by leaps and bounds in future years.  We will all tell our friends
what fun we had and the fact that it was an amazing learning experience as
well. 
	Those of us who use dog guides were a bit worried about how our
guides would react without sight but they all did fine. We just had to heel
them with a leash and drop the harness. It was good to have one of the
instructors from The Seeing Eye present too. We never had to call on Kaelyn
for help though and she too had such a fun time.  
	At the DID, we had over 200 participants and it appears as though we
did really well in raising funds for the Center for the Visually Impaired.
We are still sorting out our profit as folks are continuing to mail in
donations to CVI. There is nothing like working for months and months and
putting in countless hours to realize that our hard work paid off in spades.

	Deanie Lowe, my co-chair, is the former Chair of the Volusia County
Council and two term Supervisor of Elections in our county. We worked
together years ago and we did have fun putting our volunteer efforts
together once again. We will have all of the instructions we wrote in place
for next year. Sheriff Ben Johnson and his deputies, wearing night vision
goggles,  did a fabulous job serving our guests and guiding everyone to our
tables in the darkness. One deputy instructed some of our guest to be
careful not to step on the dead bodies and warned them not to get too close
to the snake that was lurking somewhere in the dining room. What a hoot! The
Sheriff came to my table several times telling me what fun he was having
observing our sighted guests in their dining experience. 
	Great fun was had by all! I was able to talk to the group about
important skills of blindness and shared some funny experiences I have had
with some sighted folks over the years. One of these questions was..."Have
you been blind all your life?" "Not yet I replied." Well my intent was not
only to add levity to my talk but to provide some helpful information to the
group when meeting blind people. 
	Ronee Silverman concluded the evening by presenting Deanie Lowe and
me with a dozen long stemmed red roses and gourmet chocolates. Certainly we
did not expect such a gesture of appreciation but we were profoundly
touched. Thank you Ronee and other hard-working staff at CVI. Also thank you
to Carolyn Lapp who provided invaluable information for our big event since
her Florida Outreach Center has successfully put on several dining in the
dark events. 
	Peter, I am proud that the Greater Daytona Beach Chapter of the NFBF
purchased a table for the DID. It is always a good thing for us to expend
some funds in support of other organizations. Yes, our event was a
resounding success! 

Kathy Davis


-----Original Message-----
From: Nfbf-l [mailto:nfbf-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
petercerullo at aol.com
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 2:14 AM
To: nfbf-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Nfbf-l] Daytona's dining in the Dark!


Federation Family,

The only words that could describe the experience the wife and I had on
Wednesday October 17, 2012 CVI dining in the Dark, would be Spectacular!
Delightful! Magnificent! Ronee Silverman, Kathy Davis and Deanie Lowe are
three very stunning ladies who diligently worked hard at putting this CVI
fundraiser together. The classic Plaza Resort & Spa located in the heart of
Daytona Beach was the host of this event. I salute everyone who worked on
this project, supported it and to all who enjoyed one fabulous night out
dinning in the dark.

Peter Cerullo



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