August 2016

… or maybe it’s not if you have a career behind you as a surgical nurse.

Littleton’s 2016 Western Welcome Week, including our tours and participation in the Saturday parade, was sure a lot of fun! This week has already seen Matt complete his support drop, our canoeing trip postponed due to thunder, our first rock climbing trip today for the (really?) fall!

Even as the 10-day Western Welcome Week celebration was winding down on Sunday, Seniors in Charge students were arriving at the McGeorge Mountain Terrace apartments for a week of taking on new challenges in blindness skills. Offered by our Senior Services staff led by Duncan Larsen, Seniors in Charge gives a week’s worth of intensive training in Braille, cane travel, technology and home management skills.

Students and staff are getting ready for tomorrow’s Western Welcome Week Parade – the highlight of the 10-day celebration in Littleton. After opening our doors for tours and at the same time graduating two of our students, it’s a fun way to end the week. What could be better than walking down the middle of the street to spectator applause!

And the weather promises to be perfect!

So keep a lookout for us in the morning on Littleton Boulevard – we’ll be showing some cane!

While Marlene is getting ready to serve her final graduation meal (for 60) and Brigid is working on her own grad meal for tomorrow, let’s look back at Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, the extraordinary smells of both Christian’s chicken kababs and Kierra’s pot of red beans and rice cooking all Tuesday morning cannot be conveyed successfully to the reader in words or pictures. The odors wafting out of the kitchen made lots of stomachs growl. Just saying …

Tech classes went out to the garden first thing in the morning. They brought in lots of great stuff – zucchini, an abundance of tomatillos, half a dozen eggplants and more. We don’t want this to get around, but there are a couple of green pumpkins out there, too.

Later, a new martial arts class started with Rachel, which meant a lot of punching and kicking. Take a look at Brittany – she looks pretty fierce in her fighting stance. Maybe because she was getting so hungry smelling all that food!

Thursday, August 18

3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

That’s right, this rodeo isn’t over yet!

Farhan came to the center from Pakistan because he believed that the confidence and self-reliance in our tag line mean greater independence and opportunity for him. Here he is, a little past the mid-point in his training, making really amazing (and crunchy) samosas for 15 guests, and you can feel his new confidence!

Littleton’s Western Welcome Week starts … Well, tomorrow! Next week we will give tours and promised that we’ll do Goal Ball demonstrations in the gym, and even let guests take their turn if they like. So, Martin, Warren and Jimmy went down to the gym this week to demonstrate some basics for those who’ve never herd of Goal Ball.

Maybe you’ll want to take your shots next week, or even watch the Goal Ball action during the 2016 Paralympics!

Warren completed his woodshop project this week. We’ll call it a “Littleton Slugger”, which he turned on the mini-lathe. He plans to have all his instructors sign it when he graduates and returns home to Philadelphia.

Wednesday Brigid successfully completed her support drop and Marlene went on her solo drop. Oh yeah, Marlene made it back too.

Every Tuesday morning a different group of Center students heads out back to our Legacy Garden to meet the Colorado Master Gardeners from Arapahoe County, and to see just what’s happening out there. Students work with the Master Gardeners to plant, cultivate and harvest the bounty. In these hot, hot days of August the lilies are done blooming, but the vegetable garden comes into its own, and it really is a bounty!

On recent Tuesdays students have begun bringing in eggplant, zucchini (quite large), tomatoes, tomatillos, various peppers, kale, cucumbers, celery, basil and peaches! The produce is used in the kitchen in Home Management class or taken home for personal cooking by the students at the McGeorge Mountain Terrace Apartments. If there’s any leavings, staff gather it up for their own kitchens.

What could be better than freshly picked, home grown (organic) produce? Hmmm, maybe only the confidence and satisfaction that comes from knowing that you helped grow it!

We’re inviting the community in to learn how blind people do things, but our real purpose is to give folks a chance to learn that blind people are really a lot like themselves.

We’re inviting the community in to learn how blind people do things, but our real purpose is to give folks a chance to learn that blind people are really a lot like themselves.

You see them all over Littleton traveling with their white canes, many wearing sleep shades. Who are they and where do they come from? They are students from the Colorado Center for the Blind, located in the old YMCA building at 2233 W. Shepperd Avenue.

As part of WesternWelcome Week, we invite you to join the staff and students for an interactive tour and learn how they do it – travel, read with those little dots, cook, use power tools, and listen to the latest podcast with their smart phones. Meanwhile, the kids can take a few shots at goal ball, the sport played entirely under sleep shades.

Tour Times

Monday, August 15
5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Sometimes we get a chance to measure how far we’ve come in life, in school, in athletics or in a blindness training program. Matt found such a moment in his Home Management class.as he worked on and ssucessfully cooked and served his mini-meal.

The culmination of the Summer Program each year is of course the awarding of certificates and the talent show. Before that can happen, however, the masses must be fed. The summer students and their instructors draw on their collective learning in the kitchen over the summer and cook a meal for as many as 120 guests. All ITP staff and students, summer staff and students, parents and summer employers are invited.

If you didn’t get to test the meal for yourself, you can get an idea how it turned out watching the video: