Independence Training Program

The skills of independence for our blind students, and indeed for our staff, are more critical in these difficult times than ever before. Even though the world has changed we all at the Colorado Center are still able to work with our students so that they will gain belief in themselves and be able to move forward with confidence and self-reliance!

Support us on Colorado Gives Day this Tuesday, December 8. And you can schedule a donation tonight if you like so that it will be counted on Tuesday.

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. The resolve has been to keep moving forward, knowing that we will prevail. Our students and our seniors also have shown their determination, ability to take on challenge, creativity and resolve to live full lives.

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. Clearly whether blind or sighted, resilience is a key to coping in 2020 and beyond. And resilience is something we at the Colorado Center for the Blind and in the National Federation of the Blind have some experience with.

https://youtu.be/TSU7-eTRrbo

Monday August 3 students and staff at the Colorado Center for the Blind met up with members of the Arapahoe County Sheriff Offices Mounted Unit at nearby Sterne Park. When Lt. Rich Anselmi, the unit’s commander first contacted Executive Director Julie Deden a while back about planning something together, Julie immediately reacted that it sounded like a lot of fun. She probably meant it would be fun for the students, too.

Last month we celebrated Juneteenth for the first time at the center, thanks to a request made by two of our students, Q and James, shown left to right above.

James is from Georgia and wanted to have a Juneteenth celebration because the day is celebrated back home. Julie readily agreed. Barbecue being the traditional way to celebrate, James determined to grill up burgers and brats for the entire center, with delicious baked beans and corn on the cob, of course. Home Management Instructor Dishon Spears gave him lots of support. Then In philosophy, we read the Emancipation Proclamation and Q led a discussion of its continued importance to Black Americans.

Today Charis is graduating from the center. Hers will be a unique graduation, with the actual Freedom Bell ceremony and the “love session” that typically follows being conducted on Zoom for social distancing purposes. No hug from Julie.

Charis was just one week away from finishing her program when we closed the building in late March and many of our students went home. Graduation means, among other requirements, that she must cook a meal for the entire center. Today that’s about 30 of us altogether.

Editor’s Note: We introduced you to holly some months ago, when the weather was warmer and she was a relatively new student at the center. She comes from the United Kingdom and her drive to attend the Colorado Center for the Blind stems in part from the fact that, as she says “there aren’t any training centers where I’m from.” And that means not even bad ones. Holly is a widely-read blogger on disability and blindness (Catch These Words), and we thought her thoughts on this video after completing our program – one of the more rigorous blindness training programs there is – offer us all an important perspective on what we do here, and why.

Maura finished high school last spring and plans to go on to college next year. Before she did that, however, she was determined to obtain the skills she needed to be independent as a blind person so that nothing could hold her back in college, or beyond. We’ll let Maura tell you how it’s going in this post she made last month on Face Book. And we hope you will make a donation today, Colorado Gives Day.

These past few days have been so incredible! On Friday, I completed my second CCB graduation requirement by making my mini meal. This meal is to serve 15 guests and you have to cook 3 dishes. I made rolls, potato soup and Oreo pudding pie, and I had a little over 2 days to shop for and prepare the food from scratch. Everything was a hit, especially the Oreo pie, and I felt so much excitement and energy after all was said and done.

Executive Director Julie Deden wrote this salute to the final five students graduating from the Colorado Center for the Blind in 2019.

Colorado Gives Day is this Tuesday, December 10, and as we do each year at this time, we are asking for your financial support for our programs at the Colorado Center for the Blind. In the next couple of weeks, five students will graduate from our Independence Training program. Each of these students have made tremendous accomplishments that will propel them towards an exciting life. Each of them now realizes that being blind does not need to stop them from doing what they want to do with their lives. By introducing you to these students and their compelling, unique stories, we hope you will be inspired to make a contribution to the Colorado Center for the Blind on December 10. As I wrote about each of them, I was inspired myself!