[Nfbf-l] vision summit

[Sherri]

Denise, I so admire you! Thanks so much for working so hard to attend the 
vision summit and for all you do for NFBF. Thank you also for your excellent 
summary. You truly inspire me! Go NFBF!

Sherri
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Denise Valkema" <valkemadenise at aol.com>
To: "NFBF" <nfbf-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 1:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Nfbf-l] vision summit


I traveled by bus Tueaday, 2/11/14 at 7:05pm and arrived in Tallahassee at 
5:05am and attended the Florida Rehab Council meeting all day Wednesday, 
2/12/14 with Eric, Jacksonville, and part of afternoon with Latoya, 
Jacksonville.

At 7:00am on Thursday Eric, Latoya, and I met in lobby of hotel with council 
members to shuttle to capital for summit. We met up with members of the 
Tallahassee chapter (Johnnie, Sylvia, Donald) under the organization and 
leadership of President Johnnie Slaton covered the NFB resource table. Many 
were wearing the champions of freedom T-shirt.  Tinetta,  NFBF Tallahassee, 
helped with registration. A continental breakfast was served and we mingled 
before summit meeting started. After the summit some had an appointment in 
a Congressman's office.

In summary, Representative Baxley mentioned that he is looking for a current 
bill to add additional support for white cane law. Mr. Doyle mentioned the 
three fold chord cannot easily be broken-client, counselor, network; 
legislative, executive, judicial; respect, trust, transparency.
Paul Edwards, FCB President, talked about three crisis of state population 
growing and not enough funding for older population to receive services, 
driver received no blame for violating white cane law after hitting a member 
in Tallahassee, and unemployment rate of blind is still at 70% and 
discriminations till exists. I shared facts from our fact sheets on 
employment, accessibility including myflorida site, and transportation. 
These were handouts on each table. I mentioned we are a resource, 
scholarships available, and thankful for continuing to have Newsline in 
Florida. I mentioned that we are grateful to be working to find possible 
solutions to these challenges instead of crisis. We had round table 
discussion on how we could solve issues in these three areas. A summary from 
each table was presented to all and will be in a report from FAASB.

I took a bus at 1:30pm and returned home after 12:30am on 2/14/14.

Thanks to all that helped NFBF have a voice, participation, and greater 
presence at the 2014 vision summit! Yeah Florida!

Sincerely, Denise Valkema by iPhone
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