[Ohio-talk] A Report from the "Drive for 75" Campaign Committee

[Smith, JW]

Dear NFB of Ohio Family, Friends and Colleagues,

I had planned on making a report for the board meeting conference call this Saturday but I will not be able to join the call because I will be on a local bus trip exploring local connections with the underground railroad history. I am excited about that experience but I did want to give you the report I would've delivered on Saturday.

We have a little less than two months (May 31st) to the finish of our campaign and although it has been frustrating in some aspects, it has also been very rewarding. The committee continues to communicate and to germinate campaign ideas, some of which have been more successful than others. The original plan was to have at least one major event in Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Toledo and Cleveland in designated months. Many of our ideas we found have required extensive time and planning to maximize our efforts and thus they proved not to be worth our effort given our tight time period ultimately. We have had some smaller events in the Cincinnati and Dayton areas and the letter writing aspect of our campaign is ongoing. We continue to encourage each other and to commit to you that we will finish our task with joy and enthusiasm.

We have turned our efforts to larger group donation requests and it is my hope that we will begin to see some of those come to fruition soon. We do have two events that seem to be coming together in the Cincinnati area on Wednesday, April 29th and Saturday, May 30th. On the 29th I will be performing at an establishment in Downtown Cincinnati in hopes of raising funds for our campaign and on May 30th we will be having a gospel concert which will feature several blind performers in addition to myself. In many ways, that May 30th event could be a very climactic final campaign push for us. Several of the committee members continue to consider and think about potential events that could bear financial fruit for us and I remain positive that something good will come from that. I am satisfied with our effort and consistency and I told my team in an earlier email today "not to be discouraged" because we have raised funds to help people attend this 75th convention and those funds are more than what we had before we started the campaign. I am requesting that any of you reading this consider sending us ideas or suggestions that we can reasonably pursue for our campaign efforts by May 31st. Keep in mind that because of our efforts we could be a part of giving someone a life changing experience this summer in Orlando, Florida. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns about this report or our campaign efforts to this point. I guarantee you that we will finish strong and we will all be proud of our final total in the end.

Jw