[nfbmi-talk] Front page of Daily News Greenville 7-17-2010

Sun Jul 18 23:34:32 UTC 2010

Front page of Daily News Greenville 7-17-2010

Blind campers get work training

BY MATT ERSPAMER

Daily News intern

GREENVILLE - In a dark job market, several area blind children are beginning to see a ray of light.

Camp Tuhsmehta, a sum-mer camp for blind children on Lincoln Lake Road in O a k f i e l d Township, helped six y o u n g adults 
enter the job mar-ket this s u m m e r with a job shadowing pro-gram.

"Seventy percent of blind Americans are unemployed because of negative stigmas that both they and employers have," said Camp 
Director Jackie Paulding. "Our goal is to change that perception that blind people can't work."

Companies from around the area, including Stafford Media Solutions and Rockford's Rosie's Diner, have taken on job shadowers this 
week.

Greg Botting, a 16-year-old who has been attending Camp Tuhsmeheta since he was 2, was a temporary employee at The Daily News. While 
there, he worked on and observed many aspects of the newspa-per, from its assembly and printing to writing for it.

"It's always been my dream to be a journalist and this experience has taught me that anything's possible," Botting said.

Another Tuhsmehta job shadower, 14-year-old Haley Cone, has been attending the camp for five years and chose to do her shadowing at 
Rosie's Diner.

"While I was there I got to wash dishes, take orders and put them into the computer," Cone said. "It was a really exciting 
experience for me."

After her job shadowing was finished, the restaurant offered her a job when she turns 15.

"I think I'll be doing the same basic things when I go back," she said. "And that's fine with me."

In preparation for this job shadowing experience, he and the five other campers went through training. They were taught the basics 
about inter-viewing for a job, important questions to ask and the importance of disclosing their disability.

SEE CAMPERS, PAGE 2A

SEE PAGE 4A

Page 2A

CAMPERS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2A

"Most of what we taught them is stuff they would learn in any kind of training to enter the job market," said Paulding.

Camp Tuhsmeheta typi-cally sees campers from ages 7 to 17, but the special two-week camp was geared for campers between the ages of 
14 and 23.

The camp also offers sever-al typical summer camps for young adults with outdoor activities such as canoeing and hiking.

merspamer at staffordgroup.com

Page 4A

Changes for the better

With nearly 70 per-cent of blind adults unemployed, the Michigan Commission for the Blind, ( MCB) decided to do something about this 
prob-lem. They decid-ed to assist Camp Tuhsmeheta, a camp for the blind near Greenville, by funding a two-week pilot pro-gram to 
teach job skills to clients. That program took wing this summer and incorporated job skill training and actual job- shadowing.

The initial training took up Tuesday through Thursday of the week of July 5. Both staff and campers worked on writing resumes, 
proper handshakes and whether to disclose the fact that they are blind or visually impaired in a job situation. The campers also did 
some work on cooking, both buying and using materials for meals that they planned. This was a great project for all concerned, and, 
in addition to the training, made the first week a great accomplishment.

While all this had been going on, other staff had been working around the clock to make certain that everyone that attended had at 
least one job experience dur-ing the second week of the pro-gram. They contacted such plac-es as the Greenville Community Center, 
Habitat for Humanity and the offices of this newspaper. In the end, they managed to secure experiences for the half-a-dozen students 
that attended the camp. All in all, it looks like it's going to be a great success.

While reactions from the stu-dents were mixed about their positions, they were generally pleased with what had been done for them. 
On Monday morning, bright and early, I set out with an accompanying staff member. I was going to be working at The Daily News, a 
dream come true.

Since middle school, journalism has always seemed like a good career to me. It seems to run in the family. My great-grandfather was 
a journalist in New York before and during World War II.

Here was my chance to get an insight into a dream job, if only for a short time.

The first order of business was to shadow a reporter. With the paper's permission, I shadowed Elisabeth Waldon, one of the 
reporters. At that time, she was covering the Montcalm County Commissioners meeting in the old courthouse of Stanton. So, on Monday, 
July 12, I showed up at the meeting.

The meeting was fairly boring until some animal rights activists began going on about how they had been slighted. According to what 
I heard at the meeting, one of the activists implied that ani-mals were still being held in poor conditions, and were not being held 
at the shelter for the proper amount of time. That little reve-lation was enough of a catalyst for me to attempt to write an op-ed 
in response. In brief, my op-ed stated that change comes because of peaceful conversation, not as a result of loud and vocal 
criticism. Sometimes, that blar-ing criticism is needed, but I don't think it is necessary in this situation. Look at the civil 
rights movement. They affected change despite overwhelming odds.

The next three days were spent at The Daily News ( Tuesday and Thursday), and News Web ( Wednesday.) Of particular interest, at 
least to me, was the printing of the paper at News Web, and the editing work that goes into making the paper presentable to the 
public. This experience has made me aware of all kinds of jobs in the jour-nalism industry, from staff writer to working the 
printing press units in a factory. I have gained a lot of knowledge over the four days that I've spent in this field, and I hope to 
be able to get a job in journalism after college.

There is an old saying, "Where there's a will, there's a way."

Despite the fact that so much of the blind adult population is unemployed, it can be done. Will and way come together every time 
anyone gets a job, no matter how small. That is especially true for all those who have a "differ-ent ability," be it physical or 
mental. This program funded by MCB and put on by Camp Tuhsmeheta showed that more clearly than anything I have wit-nessed so far. I 
would like to end my column by saying thank you to all those who participated, and also thank you to all who made this experience 
possible.

Greg Botting is a junior at Ionia High School.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PERSONALLY SPEAKING

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: clip_image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 2010 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbmi-talk_nfbnet.org/attachments/20100718/6ccc1d02/attachment.jpg>