Independence Training Program

Our 2016 Colorado Gives Day was our most successful ever, and we want to thank all of our friends and new acquaintances who helped make it so!

In all, we received $15,230 via the online Colorado Gives web site, and all of that counts toward a share of the $1 million Incentive Fund offered by First Bank and the Community First Foundation. In addition, we received another $11,275 in checks on December 6 from supporters who don’t favor online giving for one reason or another. No matter, we’re excited and thankful for all our donations, which totaled $26,505!

We’re still getting a few checks and online donations, and all these funds go toward the costs of programs like our Confidence Camp for Kids (see photo above), challenge recreation and special programs for seniors.

We’re nine days into December and, not all that surprisingly, 9 is the temperature this morning. Robert routinely interrupts class with overhead PA announcements, requesting some student or staff member to please stop by his desk on a break. This is a sure sign that there’s a Secret Santa something or other waiting for the requested one at Robert’s desk in the lobby.

Hard to believe that we’ll be done for the year in just a week, as always ending the year before the holiday break with a morning brunch and Secret Santas revealed! Before that unwrapping and Secret Santa unveiling, followed by departures across the state and to Denver International Airport, however, we’ll have one more graduation, a FAST Saturday/NFB of Denver Holiday Party on Saturday, and the Seniors Holiday Party on Tuesday, December 13.

So last Friday, staff and students took time to do some holiday decorating, and here’s a peek at that day and how the Center looks right now … on the inside anyway!

We had a little bit of snow this morning, but not enough to keep us at home. Snow is just a part of everyday life and for our students, learning to travel in all weather means feeling confident about traveling to their jobs someday.

But it was cold, and will be colder tomorrow!

Philosophy bakes no bread. Philosopher Bertrand Russell said that. But a wise man we know once pointed out that no bread is baked without philosophy. Tabea graduated from CCB in 2016 and has gone on to graduate school. She knows that our belief in our blind students is the yeast that leavens the bread of our students’ confidence and self-determination! Indeed, in our Senior and Youth Programs as well!

Please support us tomorrow, COGivesDay, December 6!

“I cook all the time now that I’ve been here as a student,” Chris says in this mini-meal video. He took his first shot at baking a pie – three pies actually, sour cream apple pies. He graduates next week! “Crable” is his CCB nickname.

Like Martin and Vika, blind people from five to ninety-five are on the move every day at the Colorado Center for the Blind!

Please support us tomorrow on #COGivesDay December 6!

Every year, Professor Harrison arrives about an hour before the class is to begin and lays out the specimens – about a dozen dog sharks or dogfish, all between two and three feet in length. Along with them are scalpels, probes and vinyl gloves. At some point in the morning, we’ll learn that sharks don’t sleep—they can’t stop moving water over their gills or they’ll suffocate, and that in the UK and Ireland it’s a fair chance that they are the main ingredient of your fish and chips.

After examining the outer anatomy, like dorsal fins, tail, nose and gills, it’s time to turn the sharks over and make an incision. Inside the body cavity students found the lungs, heart, stomach, liver and sex organs. At least two of the sharks had the undigested remains of their last meal.

This year’s group included about nine kids and a fair sprinkling of our own students as both learners and mentors.

The kitchens at CCB are just a few steps away from the lobby where Robert mans the front desk and management offices are located. Because our students are constantly cooking up amazing things in the kitchens, the odors filling the lobby area are sometimes maddeningly wonderful. That was certainly the case a few weeks ago when Chris prepared and served his mini-meal for fifteen.

So this is how Tuesday goes at CCB sometimes.

First thing this morning Alie Mays came for our “Birding by Ear” class. Seven of us reviewed recordings of local bird songs, then walked over to Sterne Park, where we heard mallards, doves, goldfinches and of course Canada geese. Today’s mascot was the belted kingfisher, an unexpected find. He just kept calling and calling as he circled over the pond.

In the Senior Resource Room something was happening called sugar scrub. Jenny Callahan led Seniors in making sugar scrub, using sugar (surprise) and oil and scents like lavender and almond. Whatever it is, it sure sounded fun to make, judging by the giggles and cackles.

You hear from us all the time about what’s going on at the Center, so here’s a chance to get a student’s story from the very first.

Graham arrived in Denver from Brooklyn in mid-October, and he’s been blogging each week about his time at the Center for his friends back home and wherever. Check out his blog, See What I Did There.