General Colorado Center Information

It’s a rocking week at the Center! After being away at the NFB Convention for two of our Tuesday gardening days, the Tech classes checked things out this week. Japanese eggplant was ready and everyone got a little excited about the peach tree we planted a couple of years ago. It’s the first year it’s big enough to really bear fruit, and it is!

We have a couple of new ITP students. Also, Will is a grad student at UNC and is doing part of his practicum in Orientation and Mobility with us for three weeks. And Alfred D’Agostino, Chair of the Chemistry Department at Notre Dame of Maryland is here this week teaching our students the fundamentals of the Talking Lab Quest from Independence Science and its applications in Chemistry. Dr. D’Agostino has taught college chemistry for more than 20 years.

And then there are the mini-meals and so much more happening this week! Like summer kids canoeing and ITP students rock climbing. In fact, Alfred, a former Boy Scout Troop leader, will join the rock climbers tomorrow!

Then it’s Science Day for Summer on Saturday!

Whew!

We’re back! The 2016 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind, which all staff and students in our Independence Training Program and our summer students attended in Orlando from June 30 to July 5. Everyone flew back last Wednesday.

Summer students and staff had just one day to do laundry, get groceries in their apartments and rest a bit. Then on Friday they went white water rafting on Clear Creek near Idaho Springs, about an hour west of Littleton. Here are a couple of photos from the trip …

Skills and confidence in the kitchen are the twin goals our Home Management instructors have for their students. So a while back they ratcheted up the expectations – and the fun – with CCB’s own version of the Food Network’s reality cooking show Chopped. The four combined classes were each divided into two teams of two or three members that competed against each other.

Like the TV show that pits chefs against one another, each team got a basket of selected ingredients that they were required to incorporate into their three-course meal. They had two hours to create and then to present their creation to the three judges.

Here’s a taste of the excitement… Enjoy!

If you didn’t know it already, Maureen is diva of the Breaking Blind YouTube channel. Teaching Home Management at the Colorado Center for the Blind is just her day job. This video was shot late last summer, and is timely now that the weather’s finally turned hot again …

Tactile art classes, taught by sculptor Ann Cunningham, have been a unique part of training at the Colorado Center for the Blind since the 1990s. Students might work in stone, clay, make tactile drawings with Ann’s Sensational Drawing Board, or go wherever their creative sense pulls them.

Just before his graduation from the Center and return to New York, Peter talked about his experience in Ann’s art class at the Center and what it meant to him.

We’re still buzzing with the excitement of last Saturday. It’s not just the work, but it’s spirit of the folks who came and the shared effort!

Saturday, April 30 dawned to several inches of wet snow on the Center’s grounds, and temperatures in the mid-30s. The rain mixed with snow continued all morning and afternoon, but it was Comcast Cares Day 2016 and dozens of Comcast employee-volunteers and their families showed up anyway to work on our landscaping and other tasks. They came because they said they would, and because this event is one of the largest corporate-sponsored volunteer programs in the US.

It’s obviously the people – the employees and their families – who truly make it a huge success.

“It’s beautiful,” Kimberly McCutcheon said as things packed up before noon. “It would have taken us years to get all of this done!”

A big heart and steadfast determination to finish his training at the Center despite significant health challenges are the things that fellow students and staff remarked on again and again Friday morning when Christopher was awarded his Bell of Freedom.

Julie Deden noted the disruption in the middle of his program as she presented his bell, and how he insisted on continuing. But the most important thing, said Julie, is that Christopher has “such a big heart”, and that he’s always ready to help others, volunteering to help out with youth programs and more.

“Every time someone graduated, I told myself I was one graduation closer,” he said of the time before health issues temporarily intervened.

Christopher’s Bell of Freedom ceremony took place immediately following morning announcements. Though he served his grad meal a couple of weeks ago, he finished his last graduation requirements this week, including his drop on Thursday!

“You have a heart of gold,” and “Keep your heart open” typified the sentiments of fellow students and staff during the “love session” following the bell ceremony.

Here’s a brief video from Comcast Cares Day 2016. It’s a 360-degree look at volunteers at work outside at the Colorado Center for the Blind on the morning of April 30.

(Editor’s Note: This press release was forwarded to us by the Community College of Aurora, and it is certainly worthy to be shared with all. Congratulations to Reem!)

DISABLED STUDENT RISES TO THE CHALLENGE TO GRADUATE

Reem Hamodi Graduates with 4.0 GPA

May 9, 2016 – Aurora, CO – When Reem Hamodi arrived in the United States five years ago from Iraq, she wasn’t sure what to expect.

She felt isolated because her English wasn’t perfect and communicating with others was a challenge, especially because Hamodi is also blind. Despite those challenges, Hamodi graduated from the Community College of Aurora on May 7 with an Associate of Arts degree in psychology and with a 4.0 grade point average with the intention of becoming a psychology professor.

Hamodi grew up in Iraq and lived in several countries such as Jordan, Syria, and Libya. “There were no services for blind people in my country,” she said, referring to Iraq.

This is Haylee’s speech for our short-term public speaking class, given last fall before she graduated. Not only did we learn about synesthesia from Haylee, we also learned during the question-and-answer segment (not shown) from Tabea how she and her sister Sarah argued as children over things like what color Tuesday was. They both had very different ideas. Here’s the speech though: