General Colorado Center Information

Whew! So this is the way this week has been – really, the entire month!

A small but dedicated cadre of staff and students went out for a good hike on Sunday at Mt. Falcon near Morrison, and just to the south of Red Rocks. Like rock climbing and our Urban Adventures program, we partnered with the National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD) on the hike, which was 6.4 miles round trip, and rising from 6000 feet to 7500 feet in elevation.

Monday certain students attended a Boomers’ Career Fair. We don’t need to call out the attendees by name.

Pipi is teaching a sewing class on Monday afternoons, and they made a trip to get materials this week for their projects.

Ann Cunningham had a room full of artists later Monday afternoon, chiseling and filing and having a great time.

Tuesday Group 3 went rock climbing at El Dorado Canyon with NSCD.

We’d like to acknowledge two special visitors that came for a tour of the Center on August 24.

Bill Gideon is retired now, living in Longmont, but he served on New Mexico’s Services for the Blind Board from 1972 to 1984. He came to the Center with his friend Jo Anne Brubaker of Evans, and our student Tabea gave them a tour.

Bill doesn’t spend his retirement visiting blindness training centers, though. We have it on pretty good authority he’d rather be fishing. However, his daughter, Yolanda Thompson works for us three days a week teaching computer technology one-on-one, as well as maintaining our staff and student desktops. Yolanda herself is supposedly retired after teaching at the New Mexico training center for nearly … well, we don’t need to mention that number. And of course with Yolanda we also gained Bill’s son-in-law Mike Thompson as a three-day-a-week volunteer.

Dr. Edward (Eddie” Bell, Director of the Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness at Louisiana Tech University, visited the Colorado Center for the Blind on September 3.

In Colorado to provide expert testimony to the Colorado Legislature’s Interim Study Committee on Vocational Rehabilitation Services for the Blind, he also presented an excellent philosophy class to our students, urging them to consider higher education as a means to economic independence.

Describing himself as a “ghetto kid” from Albuquerque who’d already dropped out of school by the time he became blind, he told students that he had no plans ever to go to college.

In fact, his decision to attend New Mexico’s training center Alamogordo was because “it sounded better than sitting on my brother’s couch.”

That was his ultimate reaction when a mentor suggested he start thinking about college, but his first thought was “No way.” I was a poor white kid. No one in his family, in his neighborhood or school had gone to college or was going to college. Then he thought of that couch again.

Six remarkable women made up our late-summer Seniors in Charge the week of August 31 to September 4. Ranging in age from 58 to 90, it didn’t take long to figure out that each of them were accomplished, dynamic people, and had been all their lives. They came to Seniors in Charge because they intend to remain that way.

Three of the women came from the Grand Junction area and one returned from Mexico, where she retired after living and working in Denver. It was an intense and demanding five days and six nights, of course including Braille, cane travel, assistive technnology and home management skills. Though sleepshades are optional during Seniors in Charge, they are encouraged, and each student took on the challenge at least part of the time during the week.

Cindy served a great meal to the entire Center on September 4 as the culmination of her program. She had lots of family from Arizona with her – her Mom and sister, with two little nephews, as well as her Aunt and Uncle and two of her cousins made the long road trip from Nogales to be a part of her celebration of success and independence.

Cindy made her Uncle’s chicken recipe as part of her chicken salad, which was accompanied by a peach iced tea and strawberry shortcake. Despite a food processor malfunction the morning of her graduation, she powered through on the strength of the confidence she has gained in herself throughout her program, and on the confidence her instructors have in her.

Cindy honored two of her instructors, Delfina for Home Management and Steve for Travel, by asking them to jointly present her Freedom Bell at her graduation.

Andy’s motivation was his desire to be an independent blind person, and he worked hard at it every day to earn his Freedom Bell. His love of learning was also a real asset.

On August 27 Andy graduated from the Center following eight months of joyful learning powered by an intense desire for personal independence.

“I can’t teach hard work and motivation,” his Home Management Instructor, Maureen told him.

Andy was a role model of both characteristics. He rarely missed a day and accepted each day’s new challenge with an equanimity that belied his eagerness to try new things.

The days are hot, but the mornings increasingly cool, almost chilly, and the hot air stirs in the evening. The sound of those breezes, the sound of the leaves, has changed, though – just another tick toward fall.

So we started up art classes with Ann Cunningham again on Monday afternoons and martial arts with Littleton Martial Arts Academy on Tuesday afternoons.

We still have gardening on Tuesday mornings with the Arapahoe County Master Gardeners – it’s all about harvesting now!

Tuesday mornings we have Seniors and NFB of Colorado President Scott LaBarre is here to chat with them, and to hold a philosophy class with our ITP students.

What else? Alex went on his first independent travel route to Romancing the Bean at the Littleton Downtown Light Rail Station.

“The coffee was good,” he said. But really, he was pretty excited about this first step into independent travel.

And Haylee went out on a support drop. She couldn’t tell us where she and her instructor Steve were left off, but she easily described how she got back. And she was a little mad …

It was a magical evening. May 15 marked the end to a long career at the Colorado Center for the Blind for Tom Anderson. More than 150 people came to send Tom and Linda off to Kansas after 27 years teaching Braille - and several other duties. We fed them, and gave the tribute to Tom and Linda that we felt they deserved. And we did it without electricity.

Help

By Marie Frackiewicz

(My head’s spinning like a crashing airplane.)
(My voice is broken like an old record.)
(My courage is shattered like a dropped mirror.)

How can I help myself?
How can someone help me?
How can anybody help me?
How do I live life like this???

A friend is all it takes to stop my dizziness.
An advocate is what I need to regain my voice.
A leader is here to give me courage.
And I am here to do my part.

At first I may have been lost but I have discovered so much more!
The more I explore, the more I learn, and the more I try the better I become.
The world can be a dark and frightening place, so the CCB has helped me find my way.
So, where are you headed next?

It’s the last week of July, and at the Colorado Center for the Blind we’re fighting the feeling that summer is almost over. We know that there are still weeks of hot weather, lovely warm Colorado evenings to enjoy.

But that vague anxiety is fueled as the last week of July saw our 22 summer students graduating on Wednesday, cleaning and packing on Thursday and leaving on Friday. Many of them are starting school in the first week of August. For them, summer truly is about over.

From Shay: Here at the airport, waiting to go home. Thinking about this summer, and how great it was. I met a lot of really amazing people this summer that have really help me and challenge me to do the best that I could. I am leaving here with so much. New friendships, amazing memories, and The ability to do more than I ever thought I could. I will never forget the memories or the people I met this summer. hope to come back next summer and to see all of you sometime again.