Holidays

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.

As soon as we finish morning announcements in the main room, staff and students move to one of the seven breakout rooms: Braille, Cane Travel, Home Management, Brett’s lab, Chip’s Lab, Tech Lab or Study Lab. At 11:15 we all meet again in the main room for philosophy class.

There’s a lot to be thankful for at the Colorado Center for the Blind. As many families like yours will do today as they gather around the table, our staff and students shared what we were thankful for at our CCB family’s Thanksgiving feast one week ago. Not surprisingly, we are all grateful for one another and the Colorado Center for the Blind.

For our students, they expressed gratitude for the bonds of friendship and support they now share with both their instructors and fellow students, bonds that will last far past the day each student receives his or her Freedom Bell at graduation.

For those of us fortunate enough to teach or serve in some other role at the Center, we frequently shared how lucky we feel to be here, working at a place that has such positive impact on our students. And we can see something new in our students every single day, some new skill or accomplishment that leads to that feeling in each student that they indeed can take charge of their lives with confidence and self-reliance. Blindness doesn’t have to hold them back. What an extraordinary privilege!

Colorado Gives Day 2019 is December 10, and it’s the tenth year of this highly successful program to encourage online giving to Colorado nonprofits like the Colorado Center for the Blind. And we’re proud that we’ve been a part of Colorado Gives Day from the very first!

Sure, we’ll gratefully accept donations any day, any time, but Colorado Gives Day on December 10 gives all of us some distinct advantages. Let’s mention, um, 10 of them!

Can’t wait for Halloween to get here? Want something to do on a Friday night? Never been on a scavenger hunt? Well, come and join CCB for a Friday night of fun! We’ll have plenty of activities to test your problem solving skills, mental mapping techniques, spatial awareness, and most of all, your Cane Travel abilities.

We hear tails of what lies beneath the poolroom, or where that screeching down the north hallway comes from, but don’t let those minor obstacles stand in your way. After all, you have goals to achieve, places to be and treats to find.

• A fun and spooky scavenger hunt.
• Bobbing for apples, a fun twist on a good old classic.
• Pumpkin decorating
• Mummy Wrapping, not a rapping mummy.
• A presentation for parents on the ins and outs of independent travel techniques.

And we’ll have pizza, too!

Ho! Ho! Ho! Don’t miss our Holiday Party on Saturday, Dec. 15, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Colorado Center for the Blind! CCB’s FAST program is teaming up once again with the NFB of Denver Chapter for this event, which will include gift-wrapping for the kids, holiday arts and crafts, and a visit from our blind Santa. He may have gifts for the kids, too!

We’ll serve lunch and cider and perhaps sing a few rounds of carols before the day is done! So, make sure it’s on your Holiday Calendar!

Saturday, November 10 was a full day – full of learning and, by about 1:30, we were all just full. Twenty-four came for our FAST (Fun Activities and Skills Training) Thanksgiving meal. A mix of blind youth, parents, teachers, staff and volunteers (and one little brother) made an early Thanksgiving meal, substituting chickens for a turkey.

Everybody got a hand in the preparations and the feast that followed! Four parents also took the opportunity to practice skills under sleepshades, doing everything from slicing carrots to taking pies from the oven.

Yes, we’re full of thanks for all who came, for the teenagers hanging out by the piano after it was all put away, and for the leftovers, naturally!

Here we are with a white Christmas in Colorado when it was looking pretty dusty and dry. Naturally, the Center closed for the holidays, but we finished up in the spirit last Tuesday. Our traditions involve a breakfast together, provided by the GraceFull Cafe in downtown Littleton consisting of very large and very delicious breakfast burritos. (Yes, that’s a recommendation for the burritos and the GraceFull Cafe!)

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.