It’s Colorado’s biggest online giving event of each year, and just about our biggest fund-raising event too! It’s on the news, in your email box – just about everywhere.
But just so you don’t forget, you can go online at https://www.coloradogives.org/donate/CoCenter and schedule a donation to roll over on December 6. That’s the day your gift will count toward our percentage of the $1 Million Incentive Fund for Colorado Gives Day!
And how does your donation help our students? It helps with things like our ground-breaking tactile art program and challenge recreation activities like rock climbing and skiing. These are “extras” from the perspective of each student’s state vocational rehabilitation program, but essentials from the perspective of our program and philosophy about blindness. Blindness doesn’t have to hold you back, and climbing a rock wall or creating something with your own hands in art are critical in our students coming to believe in themselves and their potential – every bit as essential as navigating the internet with a screen reader, reading Braille, crossing Santa Fe Drive, or cooking a meal for fifty people!
How do we know? Our students tell us, in many different ways. Here’s an excerpt from a Face Book post Vaughan made last March after skiing at Eldora with an Ignite ski guide:
“… so, you quickly turn right and Bam! You start tumbling down. Laying there in the snow with a big smile on your face and all you can think about is oh my God that was awesome! this is incredible! The sun is shining down on me, I’m lying on the Side of this mountain in Colorado. I’m not stuck in my head … thinking about what can go wrong at this moment. I’m not thinking about what went wrong. I’m thinking about everything that feels so right.
“What if I didn’t come here today? What if I chose not to push forward? What if I didn’t challenge myself to face something that seems terrifying? What if I just told myself I couldn’t do this because I’m blind? What if? What if? What if …?”
Vaughan continues to answer that question for himself, just as all of our students must. He answers by moving forward. He earned his Freedom Bell and graduated on October 22, 2022. Today, he started his new job with Amazon. And the slope is wide open before him!
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 believe blind people can do anything. Every day, we encourage and challenge each student—and they come to understand their potential as they build the skills and confidence to live the life they want. Because when you believe in yourself and experience a thriving community of positive blind people, nothing can hold you back from pursuing your dreams.
So, please remember us on December 6.
