Colorado Center for the Blind

Celebrating founder Diane McGeorge’s 90th birthday!

by
Dan Burke

October 5, 2022

Diane told the crowd that she’s decided 90 isn’t enough, and she plans to make 100 years.
Okay, we’ll start planning that party now!

Yes, it’s the 90th birthday of our founder, Diane McGeorge.

“Don’t ever give up!” That was the advice Diane gave to students and everyone else at a celebration of her 90th birthday yesterday at the Colorado Center for the Blind. And Diane never has.

A young blind mother married to a blind man in the early 1950s, she was busy with parenting, PTA, Cub Scouts, and helping out otherwise at her children’s school in Denver while continuing to work as a medical transcriptionist.
… Read the rest “Celebrating founder Diane McGeorge’s 90th birthday!”
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Seniors Are in Charge and In-person This Week at CCB!

by
Dan Burke

October 8, 2021

Dishon and Olive on the return leg of a travel lesson near the center. Seniors in Charge this year was blessed with lovely fall days.

For the first time in two years, our week-long Seniors in Charge is live and in-person at the Colorado Center for the Blind! These four dynamic and intrepid older blind folks have been waiting since spring of 2020 to get five full days of blindness training in Braille, technology, cane travel and kitchen skills, and they are determined to get the most out of this opportunity to spend quality time with our Senior staff! Duncan, Chris, Stephanie and Dishon are not disappointing them with long, and at times, intensive training every day.… Read the rest “Seniors Are in Charge and In-person This Week at CCB!”
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From the Director: Determination, Challenge, Creativity and Resolve #ColoradoGives

by
Dan Burke

December 2, 2020

Dear CCB Friends and Family –

All of us at the Colorado Center for the Blind hope that each of you had a nice Thanksgiving. The year of 2020 has brought a great deal of determination, challenge, creativity and resolve to us at CCB. The determination came from the staff who are dedicated and committed to work with our students of all ages. The challenge has been to make sure that we could continue to provide training to all of our students and our seniors in a safe manner. The creativity has been instrumental to develop innovative ways for our students and seniors to learn and to gain confidence.… Read the rest “From the Director: Determination, Challenge, Creativity and Resolve #ColoradoGives”
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CCB 2020: Resilience in a Year of Challenge @nfbco #nfbco20

by
Dan Burke

November 30, 2020

We put this video together to serve as our report to the NFB of Colorado’s 2020 Virtual Convention October 29-31. We wanted to show the creativity of our staff and determination of our blind students of all ages to obtain the blindness skills that mean independence, which are necessary despite this pandemic. In fact, the importance of independence and blindness skills is even more critical than ever. Since filming and first showing this video, we have again moved our Independence Training Program (ITP) to be virtual until after the first of the year, while also discontinuing in-person (and socially-distanced) training sessions with our blind seniors.… Read the rest “CCB 2020: Resilience in a Year of Challenge @nfbco #nfbco20”
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Giving Back – A Tribute to Robert Dyson

by
Dan Burke

July 2, 2020

By Julie Deden

For the past 16 years when you called the Center, you would talk to Robert. His welcoming voice was the hallmark of the Center and our NFB office. Shortly after the first of the year, Robert let us know that he’d decided to move to Canon City to be close to his family. He had planned to leave at the end of April, and we hadn’t even made a public announcement. And then the center had to close down daily operations due to COVID-19. As we all shifted to working from home and daily Zoom calls, Robert took to the phone and began calling our most recent alumni to see how they were faring under the new, extreme conditions.… Read the rest “Giving Back – A Tribute to Robert Dyson”
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Happy Holidays! Thanks to All of You, Lives Change at the Colorado Center for the Blind

by
Dan Burke

December 28, 2019

Caption: Cristian, Shyanne and Kelly stand in front of the medical vehicle at South Suburban Fire and Rescue Station #12 on December 16. They had just delivered a box of holiday cookies and treats baked by students to on-duty fire fighters. In turn, fire fighters showed students one of the trucks and the medical vehicle. The three students assisted in delivering treats to Littleton Police, where they met Chief Doug Stephens, as well as other officials. It is an annual tradition, our way of thanking the community that is the home of the Colorado center for the Blind.

We’re celebrating the holidays, and we hope you are too!… Read the rest “Happy Holidays! Thanks to All of You, Lives Change at the Colorado Center for the Blind”
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CCB Senior & Alum Launches “the Tactile Traveler” Radio Program & Podcast @kdnkradio

by
Dan Burke

August 29, 2019

You can’t keep Nicky out of the news. Glenwood Springs’s Nick Isenberg, who first attended our Seniors in Charge program and then came back to complete the Independence Training Program at age 73, is back in the news where he spent his professional career. This time it’s as “The Tactile Traveler”, the monthly radio program and podcast he launched on KDNK in Carbondale July 30.

KDNK is a ppublic access radio station which, according to its web site, reaches over 100,000 listeners from Rifle to Leadville to Marble, as well as streaming on the web. Here’s what the web site says:

Nicky News Premiers “The Tactile Traveler” on KDNK
Journalist Nick Isenberg applies his skills and experience to a new show that seeks to “empower blind and low vision people to explore the world and help the sighted to see the world in a new way.”
… Read the rest “CCB Senior & Alum Launches “the Tactile Traveler” Radio Program & Podcast @kdnkradio”
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#NextFiftyInitiative Grant Helps Us Take Seniors in Charge to Grand Junction This Week @50initiative

by
Dan Burke

August 26, 2019

Editor’s Note: We were excited to receive a one-year grant from Colorado’s Next Fifty Initiative in June to provide skills training and employment services to seniors losing vision. The grant allows us to serve “seniors” from age 50 and up. So, this week Duncan, Julie and Dan are all in Grand Junction for our first-ever Seniors in Charge road trip! Here’s the press release we sent out.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Dan Burke
(406) 546-8546

Date: Sunday, August 25, 2019

Training Comes to Grand Junction for Blind Seniors

NextFifty Grant Helps Littleton-based Center Bring “Seniors in Charge” to Western Slope

Littleton – The Colorado center for the Blind (CCB), a world-renowned training center for blind adults, youth and seniors, will conduct its 4-day Seniors in Charge program for nine seniors this week at Grand Junction’s Center for Independence, 740 Gunnison Ave.… Read the rest “#NextFiftyInitiative Grant Helps Us Take Seniors in Charge to Grand Junction This Week @50initiative”
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Signs of Spring

by
Dan Burke

April 20, 2019

Sometimes spring arrives in Colorado in waves that feel like that bad bus driver, the one who alternately steps on the gas and then lets off, again and again, rocking you forward and back into half-nausea. That’s how it’s been this year – 80 degree days followed by an icy blast of wind and snow and then it starts again. But underfoot (and a couple of times under the snow), the grass is greening and the smell of the damp, warming soil is like a reassuring promise, while overhead in the budding trees robins and sparrows and towhees announce their return.… Read the rest “Signs of Spring”
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The Blind History Lady Talks to the Tuesday Seniors

by
Dan Burke

March 19, 2019

This morning, the Tuesday Seniors group hosted The Blind History Lady, a.k.a. Peggy Chong. Chong, a long-time member of the National Federation of the Blind, recently retired to Aurora from New Mexico with her husband, Curtis.

For a number of years she has researched stories and records of blind Americans, some as far back as the 19th Century, in order to bring their more or less forgotten or never-known lives to light.

Her “blind ancestors” as she considers them to be, become more fully rounded-out citizens, and not just Hollywood stereotypes as she tells their stories in person or in print.… Read the rest “The Blind History Lady Talks to the Tuesday Seniors”
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