Older Blind Programs

There was excitement in the Senior Resource Room this morning as Senior Services Director Duncan Larsen met with a reconstituted Senior Team. Joining her and Anahit LaBarre were Carina Orozco and Chris Parsons, who are filling the two positions left open by the departures of Chris Kinney and Wayne Marshall earlier this fall. Both women are graduates of our Independence Training Program (ITP) and have been teaching at the Center for several years.

“I’m really excited,” Duncan said after the meeting. “With our new team we’re going to work on new initiatives, reaching out to more Spanish-speaking seniors and doing more multi-generational activities.”

These are the faces of just a few who have benefitted from previous Colorado Gives Day donations. They range from ages 5 and up and their circumstances are all a bit different, but all have gained the skills and the confidence to “Take Charge with Self-reliance!”

This year our Confidence Camp for Kids (CC4K) had 11 elementary school kids for this two-week day-camp. They worked on Braille and cane skills all the time, but also learned to make their own lunches, traveled on the light rail and bus, went canoeing and rock climbing, and gained a peer group of other blind kids.

It may be the best yet! This year’s “Shared Visions” tactile art exhibit at the Colorado Gallery of the Arts at Arapahoe Community College (ACC) featured even more tactile painting pieces, a series of “boxes” from another class that were in every instance surprising, as well as an installation of an idyllic natural setting, complete with a trickling spring.

It’s the fifth year that we’ve collaborated with Arapahoe Community College’s Art & Design Center, and the fourth year our students had some of their own work on display.

The best news is that it’s open till Monday, December 3! In fact, this Friday our Senior Program will be making a pilgrimage to see it.

Colorado Gives Day is Tuesday, December 4, and we’re in for the mega-million-dollar statewide day of giving, sponsored by First Bank and the Community First Foundation! Your gift to us on CoGivesDay2018 ensures that we can continue to offer programs to youth, seniors and working-age adults that challenge, impart skills and infuse the confidence in themselves our students can draw on throughout the rest of their lives!

Sure, we’ll take your gifts any time, but there are some advantages to both of us if you contribute on December 4:

Thirteen is our lucky number when you look at the Rogue’s Gallery in this photo. These are thirteen volunteers who contribute so much to the Colorado Center for the Blind and to our students. Yet they humbly protest that they get back more than they give. We suppose that’s their call, but we’re telling you they give a lot.

No matter what the calendar says, it’s the first week of summer. The temps are in the 90s, the garden is being planted and summer staff are shadowing their ITP staff counterparts. Friday 25 teenagers (summer students) begin arriving and on Monday the elementary Confidence Camp kids start too.

So here’s another first or two. Above, Amber uses a spade for the first time out in the garden. When asked if she’d dug with a shovel before she promptly answered, “I’m about to.” And then she proceeded to do it. In the process she and classmate Annette planted this year’s pumpkin and zucchini hills.

Last Friday’s Senior Holiday Party brought together members of all three of our weekly Older Blind Programs groups that meet at the Center – Tuesday, Thursday and Friday – along with sighted and unsighted spouses (insider’s joke), and both old and new friends. There were adult children and grandchildren. There was plenty of food, lots of laughs and thanks for our great Older Blind Programs staff. But really, what everyone was celebrating was one another.

The thing that makes a difference in the lives of newly blind people is other blind people to help them to understand that blindness need not hold us back. And then, a little farther down the road, the once-newbies are passing it on to the next round of new ones.

Happy Holidays!

Friday, December 15 is the annual Older Blind Programs Holiday Party at the Colorado Center for the Blind, and the Tuesday group got into the kitchen this week to bake cookies for the event. Among the cookie corps was CCB founder and Chair of our Board of Directors, Diane McGeorge. Also our Volunteer Extraordinaire, Diane is often here twice a week to assist with Braille classes and to participate in Older Blind Programs group meetings and activities.

The Older Blind Programs party will take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. here at the center. Lunch will be served and attendees are welcome to bring additional treats and goodies which are already cut for serving.

Tuesday is art day anyway, but this week it was art day all day long. Every student and staff member worked in the art room with Ann Cunningham and Jenny Callahan making ornaments, holiday cards or whatever else suited their fancy. Without a doubt, everyone enjoyed the break from regular classes and the chance to get into the holiday spirit!