World-Renowned Training Center
The Colorado Center for the Blind is a community of blind professionals and students. Our Director Julie Deden, the management, and the instructional staff are almost all blind. Our Board of Directors, many of whom are leaders in the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), are also blind. Thus, we teach, lead, and share from our experiences of living the NFB’s positive philosophy of blindness and our belief in blind people’s capacity to achieve and succeed.
The Center came into being thanks to the vision and unswerving determination of Diane McGeorge, then President of the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado and a member of the NFB Board of Directors. With the support and hard work of her husband Ray and the entire Colorado affiliate, Diane built a training program founded on the philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind that strove to raise expectations for blind students, thus giving them both the skills they needed and the confidence to live and achieve the lives they wanted for themselves. Though much has changed in the world and the Center since 1988, that is still the bedrock of our programs and of our students’ successes.
McGeorge, then 55, was the Center’s Director when we opened our doors to five students on January 5, 1988. She guided the Center through its first decade of struggle to establish CCB as a leader in blindness rehabilitation. Julie Deden became Director in 1999. Deden’s leadership continues the growth of those programs, innovative new programs, and diversification of our funding. When we opened, there were three on the staff. Today we have more than twenty staff members and serve more students in our Independence Training Program than ever before. In addition, we have vibrant and growing programs for older individuals who are blind and for blind and low vision youth. From that first day, the Colorado Center for the Blind, along with its sister NFB-affiliated training centers, raised the bar for what blindness training should be, and we continue to raise expectations for blind people everywhere who seek true independence from their training programs.
For its first dozen years, CCB was located in two buildings in south Denver. In 2000, we purchased the Littleton YMCA and moved here that August. Since that time, we have made renovations in the building as grants and donations permit.
In 2012, just as metro Denver rents and real estate prices began climbing steeply, the Colorado Center for the Blind purchased a 24-unit apartment complex less than two miles west of the Center. Our students live in these apartments during their training, a six-minute bus ride each way.
Though it is a southern suburb of Denver, Littleton retains a supportive, small town feel in which the Center and our students thrive. The location affords us easy access to the Denver metro area’s Regional Transportation District (RTD), with easy bus and light rail connections a few minutes’ walk away. This provides an excellent experience for our cane travel classes, making the entire Denver area our classroom. In addition, our students explore Littleton’s historic downtown, and many cultural, outdoor recreation, and sports venues are all close by.
At the Colorado Center for the Blind, we know that to live a full and independent life, you need the skills and confidence to manage those challenges that may come your way, as well as the freedom to grow and adapt as you set new goals. Our holistic approach creates opportunities for you to solve your own problems and decide for yourself what you are capable of achieving, now and in the future.
“This Isn’t the end for me,” Ciara said through tears at her 2024 graduation. “This is just the beginning — and it’s a new beginning!”
Meet Our Board of Directors
Mission Statement
The Colorado Center for the Blind provides education, training, support, and opportunities that blind individuals and others around them need to empower each blind person to develop a belief in themselves that will lead to living independent, fully integrated, and productive lives.
Aspirational Statement
The Colorado Center for the Blind is a training center and community of blind and low vision people proudly affiliated with the National Federation of the Blind. We embody the National Federation of the Blind’s philosophy which teaches that with training, opportunity, and positive attitudes, blind people can compete equally. The Colorado Center serves all blind individuals and others associated with them through a world-class staff, resources, and facilities supported by a solid diversified funding base. Center participants become successful and actively engage in both the blind and greater community. Our aspiration is for a community of positive blind people who bring value, diversity, and leadership to their local and global communities.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement
The Colorado Center for the Blind celebrates and embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion as core values in its mission. We respect differences of opinion, beliefs, identities, and other characteristics that demonstrate that people are a diverse cross section of society. While we encourage the exchange of differing ideas and experiences, we do not condone the use of demeaning, derogatory, or discriminatory language, action, or any other form of expression intended to marginalize an individual or group. The CCB does not tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, religion, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, marital status, age, genetic information, disability, political affiliation, or any other characteristic or intersectionality of characteristics.