Blindness

Our Legacy Garden planting is complete, helped again this year by our partners with Arapahoe County Master Gardeners and of course all the rain in the past few weeks. (Actually, all the rain has made it difficult to plant on some days because the ground was too wet.)

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!

A while back, the Philosophy class met in the gym and student Jamila Lane led us through a “Privilege Walk.”

Jamila, from Atlanta, previously participated in Privilege Walks in both her undergraduate and graduate studies, but it was her first time leading one.

“Disability added a very interesting layer to it,” she said, “because everyone in this group is blind.”

Meaning that for questions that involved disability, almost everyone had to stand still or step back, and more than once as a result, leaving most of the staff and students clustered around the center line by the end.

This December 7 you surpassed previous years with your support for the Colorado Center for the Blind and our programs for blind people of all ages, making 2021 one of the best we’ve been lucky enough to experience on Colorado Gives Day. And we’ve been part of it from the very beginning.

So, we are more grateful than ever for the incredible support of our community in one of the more difficult years any of us may have experienced.

The certificate has arrived! Of course, the winners of the 2021 Littleton Western Welcome Week Grand Parade were announced back in August, but now that we have that piece of paper we can’t help but crow a little!

And so we won first prize in the Group/School category! Hooray!

Was it the noisemakers? Was it the matching T-shirts? Was it the goofy object Gene wore on his head? Those probably all helped, but it was more likely the excitement and the sense of release as we shook our tamborines and maracas and chanted, “Who are we? CCB!” as we marched the parade route.

They love Chaz Davis in his hometown of Grafton, Mass. But we are just as proud of him here in Littleton, Colo. at the Colorado Center for the Blind!

Chaz, a 2016 Paralympian in Rio and a 2017 graduate of CCB, won the Boston Marathon’s visually impaired division on October 11. It was the 125th Boston Marathon, but the first year that this division was available for blind runners to register in. Previous blind marathoners in Boston just … well, ran.

Blind runners run with a guide to whom they are tethered, meaning that the guide and blind runner must be carefully matched as far as speed and endurance, and marathon runners may change guides during a race.

We send out a loving and hearty “Happy Birthday” to our founder, Diane McGeorge who is 89 today!

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.