[Nfbsatx] Fw: [Blindtlk] FW: Awareness was the Main Course

james sofka jamessofka at att.net
Fri Mar 12 04:13:17 UTC 2010


Hi, all.
For your information.
Jim Sofka.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cindy Handel" <cindy425 at verizon.net>
To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 7:08 PM
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] FW: Awareness was the Main Course


> Wow!  There was nothing positive at that dinner.  Everyone talked about 
> the
> negatives they see in their own experience or that of loved ones.  So, it
> seems all they were there for was to pretend they understand what it's 
> like
> to be blind and to be thankful they aren't blind.  Not a good thing to
> thrust on people.
>
> Cindy
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jewel S." <herekittykat2 at gmail.com>
> To: <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 5:48 PM
> Subject: [Blindtlk] FW: Awareness was the Main Course
>
>
> Here is the original St. Petersburg article. I think the Letter to the
> Editor was a bit harsh, but does hit on some very good points,
> including the fact that Foundation Fighting Blindness uses blind
> people to create pity from sighted people to raise funds. It's a sad
> state when a blind person has to talk about how depressed and angry at
> the world they were when they went blind to raise funds. Of course,
> they don't -have- to, as NFB chapters all over the nation raise funds
> by showing people what we -can- do. Our local chapter is doing a
> Pancake Breakfast with Applebee's, and I am going to suggest that we
> not be so wary about being the servers...take the plunge and serve the
> breakfast. We -can- do it, and the sighted people who attend will be
> impressed and pity us, but maybe it'll teach them that we can do
> anything a sighted person can do, sometimes even better, because we
> use more than one sense to do the task.
>
> Without further ado, the original article:
>
> Awareness was the main course.
> By LAURA Reiley Times Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG  You knew your plate
> had been set before you only by sense of smell. It smelled like beef,
> something braised and hearty. On your right a voice asked what you do
> for a living. You turned and lobbed an answer in that direction.
> Tuesday night was the Foundation Fighting Blindness's first Tampa Bay
> Dining in the Dark event at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf
> Club. More than 200 people, dressed fancy and sipping cocktails, took
> seats in the main ballroom and eventually donned something called a
> Mindfold face mask, impervious to light and lined with foam. The
> lights dimmed and as emcee Dick Crippen of the Tampa Bay Rays goaded
> the crowd, the group endeavored to enjoy "the first meal you will
> never see. Other senses were heightened, texture became paramount. But
> more important, it gave all of the assembled a greater window into the
> world of the sightless. Many had come because their lives had already
> been touched by degenerative retinal diseases. Briana Pompilus , 24,
> was there as a volunteer with her mother Veronica Floyd, 44, who was
> diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa  at age 22. Still driving now,
> eventually her vision will close up as if looking through two drinking
> straws. One of the evening's speakers, April Lufriu, a former Mrs.
> Florida America pageant winner and president of the Tampa Bay area
> chapter of the foundation, spoke of her sister's retinal disease and,
> more haltingly, about her two children's recent diagnosis.
> Degenerative retinal diseases affect more than 10 million Americans.
> As keynote speaker James Minow described it, the foundation's aim is
> to put an end to retinal disease by replacing defective cells in the
> retina, replacing defective genes and by developing new treatments to
> protect degenerating retinas. The obstacle? As is so often the case,
> it's money. According to Kim Marlow, regional director of development
> for the foundation, the evening in St. Petersburg will raise $100,000
> for the cause. The most successful Dining in the Dark event to date,
> in New York, raised $500,000 in a single evening. The evening's
> honorees, doctors James Gill and Stephen Klasko, were feverishly
> optimistic about conceivable cures for blindness. For those assembled,
> a half hour in the dark was a humbling, and bumbling, reminder of the
> magnitude of the gift of sight..
>
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