The snow is just about melted in the Denver area, but here’s a photo from last Thursday, just as the big storm was moving in. Travel Instructor Ernesto Lucca with his student Megan are coming back to the Center after a class on the snowy sidewalks of the city.

Megan is definitely doing things she didn’t think she would as a blind person.

“You step off of curbs, get turned around, but it’s amazing. I didn’t go anywhere before without a sighted guide. Now I’m crossing streets, taking the bus and the light rail!”

Greetings!

It’s no trick. Colorado Gives Day is December 10, with all donations for Colorado Gives Day eligible for a share of the $1 Million Incentive Fund from First Bank! Last year was our best ever, bringing in over $33,000 in donations!p> That was a big treat for us, and we thank you all again!p> When you give to the Colorado Center for the Blind, you are part of changing lives. Across Colorado, any number of our graduates who are blind parents will be taking their excited little ones trick-or-treating tonight. The belief that they can live the lives they want—including becoming parents—is in good part thanks to the Colorado Center for the Blind and your generous support!

(Editor’s Note:  Executive Director Julie Deden sent The letter below to the 117 donors to the Colorado Center for the Blind on Colorado Gives Day. That number doesn’t count the twenty or so students, staff, and especially seniors who contributed cash totaling $284. Nor would it include all of our supporters who give in ways that are not monetary. These of course include our volunteers, board members, and many other members in our Littleton community and National Federation of the Blind community whose support we cannot overvalue! So, as 2023 winds to its end and we prepare to hit the ground running in 2024, we want to share this letter with all of you and express our gratitude. And of course, our best to you in the New Year!)

When Fitz came to the center as a student, he really didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, simply because he had no idea what he could do.

As an Independence Training Program (ITP) student, Fitz has been finding his own identity as a blind person. With what he thought of as a lot of residual vision, Fitz nonetheless was one, like many of us, caught in between the myth that blindness means absolute “blackness” and the hard reality of being stuck because we can’t actually see enough, and we don’t have the skills that many totally blind people use effortlessly every day. It takes a toll on self-confidence and undermines our ability to live the life we each want for ourselves.

As we come to you for support for Colorado Gives Day on Dec. 6, we want to share with you some of our excitement and pride in the growth and accomplishments of our students this past year. Blindness finds us in different ways and at different times of our lives. But what all of our students strive for is independence. That’s true whether it is a young person going out on their own for the first time or someone who has already established their lives, jobs, even families and now must learn blindness skills and come to believe in themselves as blind people. We all want to be independent. Obviously, employment and careers—just feeling like we are productive—are among the most critical factors in achieving personal independence. This is no small achievement since estimates of unemployment for blind, working-age adults range between 65 and 80 percent. Here are what some of this year’s Independence Training Program students are pursuing after graduation.

 And we are thankful for your support on Colorado Gives Day, Tuesday, Dec. 6!

The Colorado Center for the Blind is a training center and community of blind and low vision people proudly affiliated with the National Federation of the Blind. We believe blind people can do anything. Every day, we encourage and challenge each student—and they come to understand their potential as they build the skills and confidence to live the life they want. Because when you believe in yourself and experience a thriving community of positive blind people, nothing can hold you back from pursuing your dreams.

And that’s just what Maureen refers to in this Face Book post she made early Thanksgiving morning:

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!

The blindness training we offer, and the confidence it builds in our blind students, is not an end, but a means. Ryan is an IT project manager. Erin is an insurance underwriter. Garrett is finishing law school, Charis is pursuing her degree in chemistry. Just this year, Evan’s internship at the Audio Information Network of Colorado (AINC) turned into a permanent job. Carolina realized that she loves working with children and has an internship at a preschool. Cragar returned to work on his degree in Atmospheric Science with new technology and Braille skills that brought in the grades he has always known he is capable of.

Often, our students confess that they thought their useful lives were at an end when they became blind, but that they regain a sense of themselves – a new sense of themselves as blind people – that restores their belief in themselves and their capacity to pursue old and new dreams. That’s what we mean when we say our training is a means – it’s a means for our blind students to take charge of their lives. Confident and self-reliant!

It’s our job at the Colorado Center for the Blind to believe in our students, often well-before they begin to believe in themselves.

“We see you struggle when you first come for training, ” Assistive Technology Instructor Brett Boyer often says, “but we also have the privilege of watching you grow … and it’s always amazing.”

It is a privilege, and a joy. But it’s not a passive observation, because all of our instructors teach, challenge, push a little, pull a little, and encourage all along the way to give our students the opportunity to learn the things that make them increasingly independent and to develop the resilience and ingenuity to continue to learn and grow after the student moves on. Students go on to work or more training or college or, as happens sometimes, back to the work they did before they became blind.

Nothing tempers the desire of our students to find the tools and the belief in themselves that will sustain them in their quest to live lives of independence and success!

And so, still cautious, still wearing masks indoors all day, the Colorado Center for the Blind carries on with the training and the programs that will give our blind students those tools – in the kitchen, at the (computer) keyboard, reading electronic Braille displays and traveling the Denver Metro area on RTD. Indeed, these are the tools upon which to build for a lifetime!