[Nfbf-l] vision summit

[Darlene Laibl-Crowe]

Thanks for sharing, Denise!  I was in Tallahassee for the Florida
Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing quarterly meeting.
The meeting was held Thursday 9am till 6pm and Friday 8am till Noon.  I was
not able to attend the vision summit but did see some who had attended and
showed up at our council meeting.  

I heard that there was only one Deaf Blind person that was able to attend.
I sure do hope next year that many more who have combined vision and hearing
loss will make the effort to attend the vision summit as well!  

Thank you all for going and making a difference!!!

(smile)
Darlene

-----Original Message-----
From: Nfbf-l [mailto:nfbf-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Denise Valkema
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 1:12 PM
To: NFBF
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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