General Colorado Center Information

Here’s a shout out to this year’s crew from Rice University in Houston who came to work as volunteers on March 16 and 17. They spend an “Alternative Spring Break” volunteering, first at Winter Park with the NSCD adaptive ski program, and then in Littleton.

Zen and the Art of Archery was a popular book in the 1970s among a certain crowd in which martial arts practitioners became adept at hitting the bullseye while blindfolded. What does that mean? Who really knows, other than it was the era of the “Kung Fu” TV series.

Nonetheless, our partners at NSCD arranged an archery class for some of our students, and it took place in the gym last Tuesday.

Dare we say it? It really hit the mark!

Okay, Tuesdays can get a little wild anyway, what with Seniors coming and filling up our large conference room all morning. You gotta believe us – we love having them!

But meanwhile, down in the gym …

We had both Martial arts and Archery happening all at once. The wildest imaginations might have the martial arts students blocking and catching flying arrows, but that’s not at all the scenario. That’s just imagination …

Experience taking the podium and speaking to a group is one of those things that many of us don’t do often, but is definitely an important part of a job-seeker’s toolbox, as well as something our students may be called on to do once they have a job. Employment Specialist Monique Melton teaches this class to about half a dozen students at a time. Here are some highlights from the latest group, in order Jackson, Ceci, Graham, C.G. and Brittany:

MAKING CONNECTIONS THAT WORK FOR YOU Career and College Seminar

Friday, March 10, 2017
9:00 am to 3:00 pm

At the Colorado Center for the Blind
2233 West Shepperd Avenue
Littleton, Colorado 80120

Lunch will be provided. To reserve your lunch, please RSVP no later than March 6th to Monique Melton at mmelton@cocenter.org or 303-778-1130 extension 221.

Don’t miss the keynote address:
“Trends in Employment – The Future Has Arrived” presented by Alexandra Hall.

The pond at nearby Sterne Park usually has a fair share of Canada Geese and Mallards, and today was no exception as the group walked the path this morning.

Birding by Ear started up again today with a visit from Ali Mayes of the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies. Though it was warm, not a great variety of birds are around in February.

We were pleased to have three professionals from Blind Low Vision Services, part of Colorado’s Dept. of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) at the Center for training this week. We spent four days together exploring every topic we could think of, including cane travel and cooking under sleepshades. We’ll let them introduce themselves and the meal they cooked on Tuesday for themselves and our staff involved with the training. For the record, it was top shelf, and so are they!

The day didn’t go uncelebrated. The Seniors had a Valentine’s party (there are rumors of romance there). Even ITP got into the act with Valentine’s cookies to mark “National Singles Day”?

We were pleased to host usability testing of Dominion’s electronic voting system on February 13 and 14. Students, staff, seniors and alums took the system for a spin and provided feedback to Dominion’s engineers. We’re especially excited to partner on this project because Dominion will provide electronic voting systems to every county in Colorado for the next 7 or so years. What we share with them will be reflected in our nonvisual accessible voting for a good long while, and we applaud their effort to get our feedback!

Yes, we’re pleased and excite to be the host site for the Braille Challenge for 2017! Fifteen Metro-area students ages 6 to 17 are here to demostrate their skils in reading, writing and more using Braille. It’s our third year to host the Metro Challenge, which is sponsored by the Braille Institute of America and coordinated in Colorado by the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind. Last week, students in Colorado Springs met the Braille Challenge as well.

This afternoon the State Rehabilitation Council met at the Center. The SRC is required of each state’s Vocational Rehabilitation program, and includes members from across the state representing many disabilities.

Where were all our students, you may well ask. They were displaced today, working in all their classes from our McGeorge Mountain Terrace Apartments.