Unknown Speaker Are you ready? C Walker Yes, Melissa, I turn my video on forgot to turn my microphone. Alright. Um, thank you so much. I, I would love to take a break. But, you know, I guess I thought that to just keep pushing forward. We are one bit behind but these are fabulous exhibitors. So y'all Feel free to take a break. And we'll, we'll make it work. Unknown Speaker It'll be good. Unknown Speaker All right. C Walker Let me get. I've just posted all of our exhibitors information again, just so that everybody could have that. Welcome. Welcome, everyone to the annual meeting of the National Organization of parents of blind children in a PVC, a proud division of the National Federation of the Blind, NFP. We are excited to have you here today and to share our great program with you. This session is titled information and inspiration. And these are interwoven throughout the afternoon. Just as we did when hearing from exhibitors a few moments ago, when we learn new information, or are reminded of ideas we've heard before, we will find ourselves inspired to use this great information in our own lives and in the lives of blind children. It is my great honor and pleasure to welcome and Neil Lewis, Executive Director of NFV blindness initiatives. I have known Neil for more years than either of us would like to admit. But I always wish I'd done it sooner. I Neil's an expert in blindness, thoughtful leader, and a generous mentor and role model for blind students, their families are educators and all impact the lives of blind students. Neil, thank you for sharing with us today. And welcome. Unknown Speaker Oh, my pleasure. Cause I'm not afraid of letting people know how long we've known each other because regardless, we still look really good. C Walker We do we look weak. Yeah, yeah, I was teasing the other day I said, You know, I, my husband's a good bit older people think I'm older than I am. And that's actually not bad, because I look pretty good. Or else people think good. Unknown Speaker If we do say so ourselves. C Walker Don't look good from a real age. But I look good, good for his oldest people think guy, Unknown Speaker I'd selected that little touch up my looks on the zoom platform. No, I'm kidding. I did not do that I'm afraid of what that would make me look like. So there you go. I really do appreciate the opportunity. One of the joys of working with the Federation is to work with young people in their intern working with their parents. So let me try to meet the expectation of information and inspiration. By starting with a simple Thank you. I want to thank you parents for a full day affiliate affiliating with the National Federation of the Blind. I hope that you find it as helpful as we plan it. But even more so I recognize, based on my own personal experience, the need for what the national organization of parents of blind children offer. I only wish that my mom had identified this as a resource when we were coming up. I will share a little bit about that. But I'd be remiss if I didn't express, and I'm sure you heard from already present riccobono mean, his commitment to the education and growth and development of blind children is not only fueled by his role as president of the National Federation of the Blind, but both he and Melissa are parents of blind children themselves. So it's purely personal to them. So rest assured that the work that we do within the Federation, is driven not only by our mission, but also by conviction. It is indeed our noble duty not counted a noble duty. I don't want you to think by any means that we take this lightly. In many instances, people say that we're helping you because you're the story of our future. And surely enough the children that you're raising will eventually be the leaders in the National Federation of the Blind. I dare to be as idealistic. I think that by the time that they're adults, there will be no need for the National Federation of the Blind because there will be no more discrimination and misconceptions are, you know, but I can't afford to be too idealistic. We have to prepare the next generation of leaders and we appreciate you helping us do that. I mentioned the reference earlier, my mom, just to give you some background. I know many of you have heard the story and I tried to add different pieces that I have not mentioned before. So it's not like you're listening to the same story but my mom because my dad passed when I was six years old. She was Basically single parent of four children, two of whom lost their sight very early on, I didn't become blind until I was 25. But both my older brother and older sister lost their sight to the 90s pigmentosa, my brother in grade school and my sister when she was entering college. And I just remember the time that my mom spent this trying to find ways to get appropriate education for my brother and sister. And I have to admit, even for me at that particular time, because we, my brother and I were both diagnosed with a developmental disability. And in that instance, my mom, God bless her, she was so resilient and fair strategic, she had the school system, start implementing additional courses, and she got us prioritize for summer school. And by the time I was in the third grade, we were testing on the Iowa test of basic skills. And we went from having a label of a dat developmental disability to being gifted, which, in my opinion, was a worst label. I know that people don't think that they think that gifted is a much better label. But I realized when I was had the DD diagnosis, all the friends I had were real friends. When I became gifted, all the friends I had were elitist. And that's really what started feeding my. My isolation. Isolation is attitude. I'm very much introvert, I know people who interact with me, in various activities, don't think so because I put on the mask. And, you know, I know that it's my role to make sure people feel welcome and engaged. But it takes a lot out of me. So I rushed back. And in some strange way, really kind of enjoying the zoom experience is kind of giving me the best of both worlds. But if you ever see me present, I do feed off the energy of the crowd, just to make sure that I'm giving people what they're expecting. So that's also a different component to this too. So I hope that I'm able to successfully give you what you need. But my mom worked in ci, as a single parent worked all the time. And this has been a lot of time, work with us as children. She did a phenomenal job. And I could go into that into a lot of detail. But the point I want to make is, when I became blind at age 25. Unknown Speaker It was a whole new experience for her. I guess because he thought he was done, maybe I don't know. But it kind of made our relationship evolved in a very special way. At that time, I really started having conversations with my mom that never had before. And one of the things that she kind of disclosed to me, is for so many years and dealing with my brother and sister, she was feeling guilty. She thought it was her fault, you know that she did something. Prior to becoming pregnant while she was pregnant, that lead to deterioration, we've have retinitis pigmentosa and those of you who know RP, it's no real reasoning before they say it's passed on genetically, etc. But no one really knows the cause cause and I never knew that she was processing all of that. But I really was happy that I was mature enough to let her know that she should not feel guilty. And I want to pass it on to you just in case any of you are feeling that way. Because we all we all get dealt a deck, I mean a hand, you know, and we have to play the hand that we're dealt, I have had the luxury, say really the blessing to interact with so many people on the socio economic scale from poor to extremely wealthy. And I'm going to tell you, I know some people that are extremely poor, that are happier than many of my friends that are extremely wealthy. So it's not about wealth. It's not about material things. It's really about what what you have inside you and my mom really planted inside all of us a positive self concept. She made us strong and fearless. And we're hoping that we can do that for you and your kids as well. So I want you to understand that the National Federation of the Blind has a very direct approach toward blindness. First, starting with being okay with being blind, because in future reflections, I think it may have been an article by Carol assalamo maybe it was you caught I'm not really sure. But it was why do you want to make this child blind so a lot of people on the outside of the Federation see our desire to continue to encourage you to teach or allow your child to be taught those alternative skills of blindness when they have functional vision. That's through Okay, my brother had functional vision and as a result of them having functional vision when he was attending the School for the Blind. They didn't teach him Braille because he could read large print with a magnifying glass and he's big bottle bottom glasses with the spotlight of I mean, he could have seen further than the Hubble telescope with the devices that had him using. I'm not dismissing that he had some functional vision to us that helped him travel. But because they felt that that was enough so that he didn't have to learn Braille, left and fundamentally illiterate. He was not able to pursue a college degree. And it wasn't because he lacked the intellect. My brother was amazing, he could do mathematical problems in his head, because no one taught him Braille. You know, those types of things. But because he had didn't have those alternative skills of blindness, he wasn't able to capitalize on that remaining functional vision to reach his full potential. And the same with the long white cane he had enough for travel. But again, it wasn't safe his way of traveling. And who should have taught him cane, how to use a long white cane. So want to make sure you understand that we're not trying to make your child blind. We're just trying to make your child the best child that they can possibly be. And remember, it's a selfish desire, because they're going to be a leader of this organization. And in my, you know, old age, as an older blind guy, I want to make sure that people at the helm that continue to help me maintain my independence and my quality of life. purely selfish, just focusing on high expectations. That's what the National Federation is doing. In simple terms, we want you to set high expectations for your children, because we will. So I want to let you know that I'm the executive director of blinds initiatives, as Carlton said, and in that responsibility, I directed dynamic staff of individuals who work here at our national office in Baltimore, Maryland to develop and implement the projects and programs that affect blind people I say, from birth to Earth, from womb to tomb, anyone can tell me where I got that from, maybe I'll send you a door prize, one of my favorite movies. Um, but in that we deal with education, employment, technology, research, the whole deal, whole bailiwick. And I want to start by providing you with the information in this information and inspiration phase of the journey. So we have a host of problems to help you be the best parents you can possibly be to set high expectations for your children, I'm going to just go over them briefly. And if you need any additional information, please visit entropy.org. And you can get as much information about them as you would like. So I'd like to tell within the education space, which I focus on primarily for this presentation, we start with you as the parent, recognizing that it's so important to teach your children to be literate as early as possible. My son is sighted. But I realized that if I put print in his face, he will learn to read early because that's the same strategy by mommy's, when she brought us up, he had some toys, but believe it or not as little bitty Thomas we had encyclopedias around. So one of the projects we offer is called our Braille reading pals program. And that's done in conjunction with our partners at the American oh my goodness, for blind children and adults. C Walker American Action Fund, Unknown Speaker thank you American Action Fund for blind children and adults. And what happens is we're able to send you print Braille books, and what those print Braille books you're able to read the print on one side and the Braille on the other. And the child can read the Braille and we're not expecting them, you know, to be reading Braille fluently. But we want to make sure that this particular tool is in their environment early enough so that it's not a foreign object when we get ready to really start doing some teaching. As a site and aside, I use those same books to teach my scientists on how to read, I would read the Braille he'll read the print, and my son was reading at two years old. Of course, it wasn't a tale of two cities, but he was able to sound out words and recognize letters, because I was working with him and you have the ability to have your child progress as well. Another program we offer, in conjunction with the American accent fund is our early explorers program where we want to teach your kids that long white cane is a tool for independence. I heard the stories that there are many blind students that didn't get exposed to a cane to graduating high school, which is ridiculous. So we offer a little bit of white cane that's just the right size for your child and the long white cane for toddler. And again, we're not encouraging you to give them the Kanan Mom, I'm going to the store, I'll be right back beyond anything. But we want them to make sure that they have that tool in their environment so that when it comes time to start training them, that it won't be a foreign object, we want you to be their first child instructor to encourage them to explore their environment. Because far too many parents err on the side of too much safety too much caution. And rather than encouraging your child to touch and practically engage with their environment, stay put and be safe. Well, you got a decision to make, stay put and be safe, or explore your environment and become knowledgeable and learn how to be safe even traveling in that environment. And that's what the URL explores. And both of these particular programs come with newsletters and other peripheral information to help you educate yourself so that you can do the best job of educating your kids. So The other piece is we recognize that in that Braille, we can expect you to be the Braille teacher. And in many instances in the school system, the school again, won't teach your child Braille, especially if they have a functional vision. So they don't need that just can't stand that. Always think about my brother. So what we try to do is we try to educate you, and those systems in which your students will be participating. One of the ways we do it is with our bell program, brella ritual literacy to Learning Academy. Maybe you may have had students that will participate in this year, we had to be very creative and do it virtually. But we were able to do it successfully. But the goal there is during a two week, span of time or during the summer, we bring the children in and we teach them the basics of Braille. And we also teach them some independent living stuff. And we integrate the Braille learning into that. So teach them how to make cupcakes and use m&ms to put Braille on top of cupcakes, all those things are pretty nice. But it's not that two week is going to make them the most literate person in the world. But hopefully within that two week period, we can remove any missing misconceptions, and show you some basic fundamental strategies. But overall, hopefully will inspire you sneak a little bit of inspiration to go back to your school systems really aggressively advocate that Braille be integrated as part of their individualized education program. And again, being a member of the National Organization of parents of children, provide you with the resource to help you with that advocacy. even beyond that, we again and setting high expectations recognized very early on back when President Obama was the executive director of the Institute, under Dr. Mauer, vice president at the time that the STEM fields science, technology, engineering, mathematics, were going to be the growing new evolving career fields in a big way. And of course, unfortunately, of our blind students were not being allowed to take the chemistry and biology and other related courses because people thought that blind people couldn't do it. So in order for us to make sure that we remove that particular mis perception, we started developing our own STEM programs. And as a result, we have many, we've had the rocket on program and the most powerful and I love is that you slam we brought up to 200 kids and partner with major universities. And we're bringing those students in and teach them how to build and launch rockets and program robots and do nanoscience and build bridges and sets amazing creating opportunities. And now as a result of that many of our programs, many blind students have grown up to be professionals working at some of the major technology companies. And we continue to do that go here, again, is not to do it all in an incubator. But if we provide the proof of concept in we can make sure that other institutions like the regular K through 12, or the high schools, etc. and colleges can start implementing the strategies that we use in order to teach blind people how to do stem, we do a host of other science program. Like I could spend the whole time on that as well. But I don't want to C Walker as much love it. We can't Darn it. Unknown Speaker Thank you. How much time do I have? I'll be respectful. Oh, bad, negative. Unknown Speaker I'm so sad. Unknown Speaker It's a problem. Unknown Speaker No, C Walker I want to interrupt you that hadn't been good. That's fine. Well, Unknown Speaker I will close with this. I want you guys to recognize that when we're talking about inspiration, that don't fall subject to the fact that your children are able to do things that impressed society. Don't Don't let that be the benchmark, set expectations for your child to achieve in a way that's competitive with their side of peers. Because that's going to be how their benchmark in the world. We're going to set those high expectations, we encourage you to set those high expectations. And I tell you, that you're not alone, members of the National Federation of the buy, host of successful blind adults, stand with you and stand ready to support you. And it's not about us inspiring you. It's about you inspiring us. Because the fact that we're able to work with you and your children, and I'm able to watch them evolve and grow into productive citizens in this country. That's inspiring to me. So again, I appreciate you know that you can call on us and we can help you in any way in the future. Thanks for the opportunity. Appreciate it. C Walker Thank you, Neil. We are enriched each time you speak to us. Now note that you owe me at least one hug because I usually get a hug after you speak. Unknown Speaker Absolutely. At least one C Walker note, the longer it takes me to get it the more interest will be racking up so Unknown Speaker good. Good enough. Just make sure Steve understands. C Walker He does. Okay. Thank you again, M Riccobono Neil. C Walker In order to know where we are headed, it is important to know where we came from. We have the perfect person to take us on this important journey. One of our great parent and Federation leaders Carol castellana. Like many of us, Carol came to the Federation and to the inner PBC looking for help Over the years, the decades really, it's time capsule Carol's like sits when she started. Carol has given so many of us hope. Through her articles, her books, through her presentations and our advocacy. Through her services and her heart, Carol made certain that we know the information we need to know. And that we feel the love she has for us and for our children. Carol will be talking to us about NTPC past, present and future who we were who we are and who we will become Carol. C Castellano Thank you so much, Carlton for that lovely into introduction. And I want to acknowledge that Barbara Cheadle is in this meeting with us, hi, bar, good to see you. bar was our president for many, many years. She too started as a child in our organization. So I, you are here as part of the best, the premier, the most progressive organization of parents of blind kids in the country. The National Federation of the Blind, it proud division of the national national organization of parents of blind children, a proud division of the National Federation of the Blind. It's an exciting place to be, and I think it's really where the action is. Our formal history began in 1983 when the division was organized. But the Federation's interest in and support of parents began long before that, for example, in 1954, long time and it be President Dr. Kenneth Garin again, organized the statewide seminar for parents in California on the subject of education of blind children. And in the 1970s, our longtime president Barbara Cheadle, organized one in Nebraska. But in 1983, Dr. Jernigan saw the need to develop a division in which parents would work alongside blind adult Federation members to improve the lives of the blind. Now, some of you might have noticed that the NFP is an organization with a point of view. We call it our philosophy of blindness. And Dr. Jernigan 's idea was to apply the Federation philosophy into the classroom and into the whole lives of blind children as they were growing up. So what is our philosophy of blindness? It's the idea that blindness does not have to be a limiting factor in a person's life, that it's okay to be blind, that our children deserve a full education including full literacy. That the skills of blindness Braille, cane access tech are the keys to living a full, independent life. And it's the belief that with proper training and opportunity, a blind person can compete out in the world. It's the belief that the blind can speak for themselves, and the belief that the real experts on blindness or the blind beginning in the 1980s, and PVC became not only a critical, critical source of support and information for parents, but also an agent for change in society. These two areas information and support, an agent for change pretty much summarized what we do in this organization. So over the years, we established our national magazine, future reflections. We begin holding national seminars like this one for parents and teachers. We organize chapters in the state. We began programs, such as slate pals, Braille readers, or leaders, rail reading pals, became walk, early explorers, STEM programs, IEP workshops, parent leadership programs, mentoring programs, and so many more. We've published books and literature that have been read by thousands across the nation and around the world. Yes, we are an agent for change in society. We change the lives of individual children and their families. And we move beyond the individual to make changes in the larger system. 25 years ago, expectations were far lower for blind children and opportunities fewer and OPC raised the bar and raised expectations of parents and teachers and of the blind kids themselves. Instead of being doomed to dependence, illiteracy and helplessness. Our kids now learn a can do attitude and find out, it's okay to be blind. blindness in children is one of the lowest incidence disability. When a blind child comes into a community or a school system, usually it is the first such child in anyone's memory. No one knows what to do. And when parents begin to search for information, they're often barraged by negatives, low expectations, pessimistic predictions about the child's ability to reach developmental milestones, negative assumptions about the child what the child will able be able to accomplish depressing messages about how hard it is to be blind, discouraging presumptions about how blindness will affect family life. But when a family finds no PBC, and suddenly, they have found a new way to look at blindness, and new possibilities for their child's future, the message of despair suddenly becomes a message of empowerment and hope. Because we were founded in partnership with the National Federation of the Blind, we and our children can call upon the experience of 50,000 more blind people across the country, I think most of which are at this convention this year. And those blind people become our mentors, and our role models and our friends. And of course, our children have this organization to grow into. In addition to changing the lives of individual families and children, and PBC works to get laws passed to safeguard our children's right to a full education and an independent future. In fact, it has been NFB no people say that have gotten most of the laws passed, that impact blind children and adults in a positive way. We fought for the right of blind and visually impaired children to learn Braille. And to get their textbooks on time, we led the campaign to get canes into the hands of very young children, we got the nlos National Library Service to hire its first children's librarian. And we have participated in national committees to protect civil rights and to establish national standards in the blindness field. This kind of parent advocacy simply was not available before our organization came into existence. We insist on equal access for our kids. We insist on there getting the opportunity to learn blindness skills that can make them independent, and we don't take no for an answer. Yep, this is the place to be. This is where the action is. I'm so proud of this organization, and so proud to be a part of it. And the reason we have such a great organization is because of the people in it. And that means each of you. I know PBC is strong because of the leadership, commitment, dedication, advocacy, and passion of its members. What no PPC does is present parents a choice. We can view blindness as a tragedy and feel sorry for our blind children on ourselves or ourselves. We can or we can choose to bring up our children to regard themselves as full human beings, complete, competent and empowered. We can ask for accommodation after accommodation for our children. Or we can equip our children with a skill or tool to get the job done. We can accept custodial ism, and dependence. Or we can insist on our children learning to take care of themselves and earning the respect of their peers because Unknown Speaker of it. C Castellano And parents who stick with us tend to choose the hope and empowerment. We're not a club, though we do have common interests. We're not a social organization. Although we certainly do have a lot of fun. Ladies and gentlemen, we are part of a movement, a movement for civil rights, for full access to all parts of life for blind adults and for our kids. We have important work ahead of us. The future might look different in terms of the ways in which we do our work, but we will certainly continue to do it. It will be difficult, but we have the strength. It will be demanding but we have the energy. It will Take time, but we have the endurance. Fellow parents together in the NNPC, we will continue making history. Thank you. C Walker Thank you so much Carol. Like, I've we should have a clap track but hate clap tracks but there would be a clap track. Really a lot of claps a lot of claps. Unknown Speaker If we C Walker could do that. Thank you very much, Carol. See, I told you she is awesome. We now have the opportunity to hear from and ask questions of representatives from Pearson, a publisher of educational materials, and provider of assessment services. So, I welcome I believe we're going to hear from Elise Alyssa, or at least the key senior counsel and co lead, or the Pearson corporate Disability Mentoring Program, as well as bet Doug hacker, product manager for accessibility support on the higher education accessibility team. Thank you, Carl. Unknown Speaker Carl. Is there any way to share screen or or no? slides? If not, that's fine. C Walker Joe can do? Which one if he wants to share jam? All right. Unknown Speaker I would I was going to run the slides for them. Joe? Not C Walker jam sorlie host so she could share? I think she has to. I'm still a little bit of your Unknown Speaker All right. Thank you so much. Now, Felipe, if you want to go ahead and start to get the slides up. Sure. Sure. Thank Unknown Speaker you, Carlton, for having us today. And I'm Elisa key. I am a senior legal counsel at Pearson. I specialize in intellectual property law. And I am also I would say the most rewarding part of my my time at Pearson is to be one of the original mentors in the Pearson Disability Mentoring Program and also now to be the CO lead of the program. I love the theme of inspiration and Jan, we can go to the next slide. And really the inspiration of our program was back in 2017. One of my former colleagues Elizabeth delves was inspired to launch this program. And equally inspired was our former general counsel, Dr. Nutella Minh. He became one of the initial mentors with his mentee hoppin gamma, who is the first deaf blind graduate from Harvard Law School. And we have a photo here to just show you some of the inspiration for the program. And we can now go on to the next slide. We want to share with you a little bit about the program. It was designed for young adults, undergraduates, recent graduates and postgraduate students who are between the ages of 18 and 28. That's what we've seen with the first with the pilot program. It began as a program with about 19 to 20 mentor and mentee pairs. And the partners were young adults who are blind or low vision, mentees and Pearson legal department mentors. Since the program was launched, we've had two organizations we've partnered with. The first is the NFB and we are very, very proud of partnering with Neil and working with him closely on the program. And the second has been the Saks Institute for mental health law policy and ethics at the gold school blog, the University of Southern California. We found that legal professionals were great and natural mentors, we are goal oriented. We are natural advocates, problem solvers, networkers and listeners. And as a lawyer and as legal staff. Everyone in the Pearson legal department seems very motivated to do things right. At the inception of the program, all but one of our mentees from was from the United States, we had one mentee at a law school in Canada. And the program took place over a period of three months in a virtual environment. In Git in addition to engaging with mentors, mentees also had the opportunity To receive advice and tips on career development, interview skills and resume and cover letter writing from other parts of the Pearson business, specifically our Pearson talent acquisition team. Can we go back to the next last slide? Thank you, Jan. The focus of the program has been on career expectations, confidence and practical advice. One of the focuses of the program has also been to develop a career action plan for our mentees. And that can take many different forms. What many of us found out in developing the plan was also the importance of helping our mentees develop goals and create the in their mind a way of setting their goals. So in addition to the career action plan, we started talking about goals. The program also has super mentees or mentors. And as I mentioned, and Neil Lewis has been a prominent member of our advisory council for the program. Now we can go to the next slide jam, thank you. So, as we explored program, goals with our mentees, we also knew that we had to develop goals for the program. And these are what we've called our eagles, we have four equals we'll go back to that. That's that first, previous slide, thank you. The first goal is what we call explore. And it is a goal to explore and broaden career interests and goals. by facilitating exposure for our mentees to different and more ambitious directions. mentees here were encouraged throughout the program and supported by their mentors, to consider not just what they could or should do, but to also focus on what they wanted to do. One of our mentees who only thought that he could get a government job realized in the program, that that was not the case, and that if you wanted to do something else, the sky was the limit for him. The second goal we have is called enhance. And this goal is focused on enhancing and building a proportion upon professional skills, such as interviewing, networking and resume creation. And we we used our arsenal of resources at Pearson And our talent at Pearson to help to develop research. Tools for this, this part of our program. The third goal is what we call encourage and throughout the program, all of our mentors have encouraged and supported the mentoring journey. Now we can go to the next slide. The fourth goal, and I think the most important goal is what we call enlightened reciprocity, reciprocity. In this context, mentors, Unknown Speaker who were Unknown Speaker in the program learned more about the challenges facing young adults with disabilities and their capabilities. The program also has helped to dispel myths and preconceptions that sighted mentors may have about blindness and blind people. At the same time, mentees also would gain exposure to someone who would support them in identifying and pursuing their dream dreams. I said this is probably the most important goal, at least for me, and I think for every other mentor in the program, because them the most significant rewards I think, in this program have been faced and experienced by our mentors, our mentees might disagree. But our mentors received so much benefit and awareness and reward from this program. Go on to the next slide. So why mentoring? Well, mentoring is shown to really make a difference. encouragement and mentoring really do make a difference. And we've seen from our mentees in the program and noted increase in confidence. In their abilities, and an upward trend in their career paths, mentees have remote remarked on the strong and personal connections that they've experienced with their mentors. And with that connection, they've even said that they intended to continue the mentorship program beyond the initial three month period. I can tell you from experience, my mentoring journey with my mentee has not ended. So let's talk about some of our, our successes. And we'll also talk about some of the stories we have. And in a few minutes, I will introduce you to my mentor, he's going to share with you some of his insights and thoughts. But let's again focus on some of the successes of our mentees. We've had several mentees admitted to various law schools included, including Harvard, American University and the University of Baltimore. Other mentees have secured coveted jobs. One was is at PwC. And another is at a public health agency. Yet another is applied to a PhD program. Another was promoted at Apple and another saw a new career goal in international business law. We've also had successful internships including an internship at Pearson, one meant he started his own Disability Mentoring Program at college, another defended her PhD dissertation. One of our mentees is also a published author and another is a founder of a nonprofit. We want to share with you some of these stories. I'll start with Sam or wit or Sam. Sam actually questioned who would want to hire her. She was an accounting student at the beginning of her mentoring journey. She then she graduated from college. She relocated from the west coast to the east coast. And yes, Sam found out that many folks wanted to hire her. She is now an accountant with one of the big four accounting firms. Another amenti is avesta avasta was a first she was going into her first year of law school at York University in Osgoode. Hall Law School in Canada. She has since had two summer law internships, one as a Pearson legal intern in New York in New Jersey. She is a published author. She is now a law school graduate. And over the last two days she wrote for the Ontario bar exam. She will be practicing law at a top law firm in Toronto. Unknown Speaker The next mentee is very very close and personal to me. This is Daniel He is my mentee. Daniel indicated that he needed someone to believe in me more than I believed in myself. At the beginning of the program, Daniel was not certain of his career goals. And I think he'll agree he had no expectation of a law career. Today Daniel is a third year law student at the University of Baltimore. He has started his own nonprofit. And he has spoken on behalf of mentor of the mentoring program on several occasions. Unknown Speaker We also have several adif. testimonials from our mentors and mentees. I'm going to share a few of those with you. These are some of our mentor testimonials. Serving as a mentor in the Pierce in corporate Disability Mentoring Program to two talented women who just happened to be blind has been an incredibly rewarding experience. I've learned as much if not more from my mentees both persevered against the OD. Participating in the Pearson legal Disability Mentoring Program with the NFP has been a highlight for me and turned into a relationship with my mentee with my excuse me a relationship with my mentee that I hope never ends. As much as I think my mentee has benefited from the program. Looking back I feel like the reward has been online. Here are a few things that our mentees had to say. The most valuable thing she did was to continually Tell me, I can get you in touch with somebody and she did. The contact she provided were critical in helping me to focus on a career choice. We each came from a place where we can be totally honest and open about ourselves. It was of the utmost importance, invaluable outcomes to see my mentors humanity. I thought I could only get a government job. Now I know the sky is the limit. And I want to share one more with you because I think it really resonates that final goal that I told you, I thought was the most important. When Daniel and I set out on our mentoring journey, I was very honest with Daniel, about not really having any exposure to someone who was blind. And I told him, I probably was going to say things that that I knew may not have incorrect. I told him I was going to make mistakes. And I wanted to learn from him. And what Daniel told me was, every time someone like me, brought in someone like yours perspective, it has an exponential effect. It was a remarkable statement. It's one that I will never forget. And it is one that helped put me at ease, and help to develop the natural flow of our relationship throughout our mentoring journey. At this point, I am very proud to introduce you, too. Daniel hajus. Daniel hajus is my mentee, and a very good friend. And I think Daniel, you are out there. Unknown Speaker I am. Thank you so much. It's good to be with you all. Unknown Speaker Can you share with us some of your thoughts and insights? Daniel, Unknown Speaker I would love to I want to touch on a Neil's comments from a bit ago in this and say I was one of those kids who had just enough functional vision that no one wanted to teach me Braille or put a white cane in my hand and the level of expectations shifted when I was introduced to begin to be at 18. And then they shifted again, what is the Colorado center and other various points in my life. And in 2017, when I was introduced to Elisa, and began this mentoring program in conjunction with the NFP partnership, that was another seismic shift where I begin starting off thinking that I had limited options with my bachelor's degree, I had made a conscious effort to a hue any thought to pursuing law because I didn't think I was capable or had the resources. And as a matter of fact, when I saw that law was one of the directions highlighted in the mentorship program, I almost didn't apply based on my own low expectations. But over the course of that several months, those expectations shifted. And Elisa was gracious enough and talented enough to walk me through the application process and getting into law school in a way that has broadened my perspective immensely. So for those who are out there considering this program, and wondering where it fits in, even some of us who have been around the Federation and had our had our sights listed for years there, there's always that next horizon of what what is the next thing we're capable of, and what is the next goal we want to achieve. And that is where I think this mentorship has been just tremendously valuable in my life. Thanks, Daniel. Unknown Speaker Thanks for sharing that part of your story. Um, I know there's much more to be told and much more to unfold. And I'm very fortunate that you and I have a lifelong friendship and relationship now. And now that brings me to the last part of this, this segment to let you all know that we have a new cohort starting very soon. The new cohort will launch in August. mentors from across Pearson's us offices are being recruited, and the clip so the cohort will no longer simply have mentors from our legal department but from across peers in us. We have a new trial. model with the NFB, which includes a blind professionalism mentor, a Pearson sighted professional as a mentor and an NFP blind, young adult mentee. The applications are available now at the nfb.org website and the deadline for submission is July 31. Instead of a three month virtual mentoring program, we will now have a six month program beginning in August and ending in February of 2021. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if that six months extends into an eternity. I hope you will join us on our mentoring journey we're now going to open it up for for some questions about the mentoring program, if there's anyone in the audience that that has anything they want to ask. C Walker Any mentoring questions? Hey, I'll do I'll do this in person. So I'll do it here too. Going once. Going twice. All right. Um, we're looking forward to hearing from Doug hacker, Unknown Speaker product manager or raise our hand. I'm sorry, I wasn't seeing C Walker him at hand. I apologize. Karen. Unknown Speaker I just had a question. A quick question of what's the age group for? Unknown Speaker Hi, Karen, the age group where we are targeting young adults. So generally it's it's folks, mentees in college, undergrad, or recent graduates and in postgraduate studies. Unknown Speaker Okay. Thank you. Unknown Speaker Thank you. Unknown Speaker Awesome. C Walker Sorry about that. Okay, I'm going once. Going twice. Sold dog hacker, we welcome you Unknown Speaker to C Walker the stage as it were. Unknown Speaker Thanks. Thanks, everyone, for having us here. Doug hacker. Yes, that's my real name. I'm the product manager for accessibility support in Pearson's higher education division, which means I help our customers whether those be institutions or individual students succeed in their journey to becoming more educated and every learning opportunity we can put in front of them. Before I jump in, I want to make sure that I encourage everyone to join the general session on Friday at 305. Our president of global courseware Tim bozak, will be addressing the convention to talk in detail about Pearson's commitment to improving accessibility and our products. And revealing the details of a partnership that Pearson has entered into with the NFB, there's so much to share there that I don't want to get into it today, I just want to encourage you to go to the general session and listen to that speech, if you can 3:05pm. Just to address some specific things that go on in the higher education division, we generally support two products. One is called my lab and the other is mastering. My lab is focused on mathematics, statistics, it education, mastering is more of the sciences. One of the things we're doing to address accessibility right now is an audit of full scale audit of both the software delivery system and the content across 45 of our top titles. And by top titles. I really mean those titles that that experienced the full view of what we deliver from a technology perspective. We've had accessibility programs in place for years, we've always been paying attention to accessibility. But we're embarking on a full scale, refocus on accessibility and where we stand and this audit will help us document accessibility issues on both the platform side and content. And by platform. I mean the software delivery systems we use and content is the actual courseware that those systems deliver. We we've built new processes to document our accessibility problems. Make sure they get the kind of visibility inside Pearson that they deserve. deserve to see and make sure that any bugs we encounter are addressed and fixed. During this process, we're not waiting until these audits are done. We're fixing things all the time, and releasing them all the time. So there's a dynamic update process to what we're doing inside higher education. Next slide, please, Jim. Looking ahead at some of the things we're doing, as of this summer, every new process that Pearson develops, every new product is expected to follow WIC hag 2.1, double A standards. So we've rolled that out across the organization. We're making sure that we're compatible with mobile devices and all the things we need to do to ensure WIC ag 2.1 compatibility. internally at Pearson, we have something called accessibility guidelines that inform our content producers, people who are building websites, people who are building courses, we point these them to these accessibility guidelines to make sure they understand what we expect of them. As far as accessibility, this ability to communicate with our internal teams, vendors and customers is important as we're trying to be as transparent as possible about our accessibility, progress, accessibility roadmaps and where we're headed with accessibility, I think you'll find if you go to Ken bozak, speech at 305. On Friday, we'll hear a lot more about our transparency and where we're headed together with the NFB, and we see this as a great opportunity to focus on accessibility, and make sure the tools for learning are accessible and available for all learners. Thanks. And that's all I have happy to answer questions as well. C Walker Thank you so much. That's really wonderful. Um, I'm excited to hear about the full scale audit. My child actually took some courses with calculus with My Math Lab, mastering physics. And it that was back in 2019. But or, sorry, 2018, Fall of 2018. But even though we communicate with Pearson a lot, and we're told things were accessible, they really weren't. So I really look forward. And I know that my laptop and I would love to help and I'm sure others I know NFB would love to help you too. Because computer, of course, we want to make it testability means not just accessibility but effective. accessibility. Exactly. Unknown Speaker And I think you'll hear a lot more details. I don't want to sort of spoil what Tim is. Okay. I will say that our products are broad and multifaceted. And there are certainly accessibility issues that remain. The commitment we've made so far has been large. And in that commitment will continue. And in fact, increase with, with some details being released of our partnership with the NFB. C Walker That's just fabulous, because I'm an educator also. And I can tell you, your products are awesome. As I'm a math nerd and physics nerd, I adored the products and it killed me that my child couldn't use them, and that my students couldn't use them. So I'm so excited that it says ability is going to be coming toward them. Another question? Just quick question. I remember when we were allowed to meet in person, which hopefully we will again soon. Pearson had conducted some great studies with an accessibility education editor. And just wanted to know, where are we on that? We haven't heard much about that. We'd love to have that used in the products and assessments because really great tool nimeth friendly, Braille friendly. Unknown Speaker I will leave that to Jan mcsorely, who's up next to discuss because that's more in her wheelhouse. Unknown Speaker Yeah, so the assessors business has been developing and accessible Equation Editor for a couple of years, and we had made quite a bit of progress on it with the help of the NSC is several user studies at the NSC. But at this point, that editor is still not being used in any of our assessments. And to my knowledge is at this point, the development on it is a little stalled. So I would love to hear from the NSC about where you would like to see that editor and and what it could do to help so that we can share that back with the development team that was working on it. also believe that there's efforts underway with maybe the global learning platforms editor as well, but I'm would not know details about that, either. C Walker So would you be at the point person, Jan, or we could contact you and you could help us find the point person Pearson? Unknown Speaker Well, yeah, I can help you find the contact person at Pearson, who's over the development team that was with test nav that was working on it. But honestly, also another person that you you might want to reach out to is Libby Wilson, she is our head counsel for accessibility. So I think she would also be able to to help us find the right people to talk to. C Walker That'd be great. That's wonderful. Thank you. And are there any questions? Going once? Any questions? Oh, Unknown Speaker so Carlton, we M Riccobono never made an announcement, I'm just really quickly how to raise your hand. If you're using a computer, please hit alt y on your keyboard that will raise your hand. If you are someone just raise your hand. If you are using an iPhone, you go under more, and that will help you raise your hand if you're on a telephone star nine raises your hand if you're on a Mac, it's option y. So there is someone with a hand up. C Walker Thank you, Melissa, very much. Um, Donna, you had your hand up? Unknown Speaker Hi, I have a actually two questions. The first one. I'd like to learn more about initiatives that are being done to support students who are both blind and get this up. In our specific situation we offered our son who's been identified is being eligible for advanced academics. We opted him out of the nakliye airy because it was not accessible. And we've heard that other IQ related tests are similar. From Pearson, I call Gad. I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly, but the neck area in the combat and I'm wondering, what sort of initiatives are taking place to make tests like that accessible and to support students who are blind? Unknown Speaker Jan, I would think that's also the assessment side. And that might be in your record, if you if you're able to answer that one. Unknown Speaker I lost my audio. And for part of that, could you repeat the question? I'm sorry, I just got it back. Unknown Speaker Yeah, can you hear me? Unknown Speaker I don't even know if you can. Okay, so I lost my audio. Unknown Speaker Thank you, I can hear you. My question is initiative are underway to support students who are blind. We opted our child out of the naglieri. And we felt it would not be a good measurement of his abilities due to highly visual nature. We've heard that the same is true of the cognitive and co guide. I'm not sure if I'm saying that name correctly. But my question is what sort of initiatives are underway to make such tests accessible? And what other initiatives are underway to support students who are blind and gifted? Thank you. Unknown Speaker I think I caught most of that my audio is kind of popping in and out. So forgive me if I didn't catch all of it. It sounds like you're asking questions about some of the clinical tools that students take in schools right now. Like for placement exams, but I'm not 100% positive that that's what the question is around our clinical division, I can connect you with the person who is heading up accessibility for that division. I work primarily with school and with view, which is the professional certification side of the assessments business. But there is quite a lot of work on this the summative assessment that's going on for K 12 in terms of making those those assessments accessible to students who are blind. And we are able to deliver accessible assessments to blind students. But they're, you know, they're still always ongoing and continuous work. If there is a particular assessment that you would like for me, and I, again, my audio is, I don't even know if you can hear me relative, it keeps popping in and out. But if there's a particular assessment, if you could email me at Jay in dot m c srley@pearson.com. I will definitely do my best to find the right person to talk to and get some answers to you. And maybe we can communicate without the audio problems via email. So I apologize for my audio issues. Unknown Speaker Thank you. I have one more question. That's okay. C Walker Go ahead. Unknown Speaker My second question is, in regards to the Pearson English Kids readers program, it's might know one struggle that parents have blind children have is locating high interest, appropriately leveled texts. Were there Braille readers early, but early Braille readers in particular, having those high interest texts are really critical to any sort of young reader to maintain motivation. And I'm really excited about the possibility of the Pearson English Kids readers as a source of high interest level readers for for blind students. I know that they come with some teacher resources as well. And I'm wondering about the accessibility of this Pearson, English Kids readers and and the related Teacher Resources are, are those accessible through a refreshable Braille display? Unknown Speaker Donna, this is Doug hacker from higher education. I don't think there'll be anyone on this call who can accurately answer that question in the short time we have, we'd love to follow up. Could you please just add that question to your email to Jan? And we'll follow up offline with you on that, because I'm pretty sure none of us have exact knowledge on the question you just posed. Unknown Speaker Yeah, Donna, and there's the K 12. Business has been sold. And so I can connect you again with the the person in that business to answer that question. So if you'll just add that to the email, then I'll make sure that I get you to the right person. Unknown Speaker Thank you so much. C Walker Thank you so much. All this is exciting. Again, when we have great educational products, Doggone it, we want our kids to have access to them. I'm just going to tell you bolts. If those weren't great products, we wouldn't be as upset that they would be upset but not as upset because our kids deserve the same high quality materials everybody else does. Thank you so very much. We are running behind. So I'm going to have to say going going gone. But thank you very much to miss key. Mr. Hacker, and Mrs. Sorley really appreciate you being here. Thank you. Unknown Speaker Thank you for the opportunity. Unknown Speaker Thank you. C Walker All right, well, we're running behind but anybody with children knows that it's more important to do things well than to do things quickly. So there we are. We will now move into a very fun I can't say the most fun because everything's really fun, but a really terrifically fun part of our program. Our kid panel. We have three young people. Once you stopping and your name is first Miss Ella Mae Cummins Cummins. She's a rising fourth grade student in Missouri. She's nine years old. We're also going to hear from Ian Oliver, a ryzen, seventh grade student in Alabama. He's 12 years old. And we'll hear from Clara scelsi, a rising fifth grade student also in Alabama, who is nine years old. We let's do one at a time at first we have I told the kids five minutes I told them. They really won't answer your questions. But Doggone it, we might not have time, but we'll see. Sallie Mae, you get the ball rolling, please. Because you are ready to go. I can see that. Ma'am. You're ready to go? No. Unknown Speaker No, I'm still kind of hot. If you're Unknown Speaker feeling when I'm really in trouble. Unknown Speaker And I'm scared to tell everyone. Okay. Hi are listening to sell my speech and an introduction follows. I I'm nine years old is everyone probably already said. I'm born in the Republic of Georgia. In 2011 Yeah, Pennsylvania. And my first point is the shoe story. I know this is so weird story, but I did not like tying my shoes at all. It is my least favorite thing to do. I did not like it at all. So I would, you know, man, I would just C Castellano sit there and Unknown Speaker practice tying my shoes. And then I would start crying because I thought that something was not working. Like I get it. Exactly what you've saved. But I didn't work. But recently I learned how to tie my shoes. And now I run drag and I do long jump, and I sprint, lots of meters sometimes up and down. Even when I'm in a huge rush to get your track. I can still tie my shoes. Although sometimes my mom still thinks it's better for me to have my shoes tied because I do not do it very quickly. Calls Miss Coleman. So perservere always reserved. Don't put up today, till tomorrow. That's the moral one of Aesop's Fables. Um, okay, cool materials. Unknown Speaker You, Unknown Speaker it's fun to be blind sometimes. So because you get to use so many cool materials, like, yes, voiceover Unknown Speaker computers, too. Unknown Speaker And I go, and I'm in spectra at my school, the gifted and talented program. And it was really hard because I had to start virtually, but I, you know, because I use Jaws, I could get through that course very easily. Luckily, we're going to go in person next year. And you get to use voiceover and braille displays. Also. fun, really fun. Um, all right, point three responsibility. Yes, responsibilities, responsibility. I do not like to share this point. It's, you know, kind of sad that I have to say that everybody person, say, of people in blind people both get chores, but we both get to have pets to take care of. I have birds, I'm very fond of them. point for life. today. I got to you know, I got to be in one of my favorite things to do. And that is Bell, Unknown Speaker Braille Unknown Speaker and letters, enriched enrichment, literate learning and literacy, my favorite word. And, well, maybe not my favorite word. I love to do lots of things chess Scrabble unit. I got to attend the Braille challenge. Unknown Speaker Which is where you Unknown Speaker compete. Unknown Speaker And you're in a level, like a Unknown Speaker level of difficulty, and it's really hard. And then in April, well, you compete in like, February, and in April, you get to find out if you miss Nash. And that's like the top 10 in the whole country. and Canada. Oh, so it's kind of big to be in that I made it all three years, or as I've done it, first, second, and third grades. I'm coming now. And well, I'm coming down. And I did the Braille challenge this year. And I am you know, I was very excited. I made first place in second grade. And I'm very, you know, I've listened and I'm doing I'm sorry, I've, you know, worked hard. And I'm doing it again this year. And it could close you conclusion, I do not think you should be wishing that you weren't blind. Thank you for listening. C Walker Thank you very much salivate. And I will I just gonna highlight, everything's great, by the way, saw my very good job. But she was talking about how virtual instruction didn't stop because she had the right tool. She had her jaws and she had a refreshable Braille display, which needs Jaws, the screen reader to work so great job, Sallie Mae. We're not gonna let anything hold us back. Okay, next step is Mr. Ian. Unknown Speaker Mr. Ian? Hi. Unknown Speaker So first thing I am deaf blind. So I can't really use the that is audio but but just virtual. Unknown Speaker I, Unknown Speaker I think that it could be better. There's major improvements But hey, this is just the beginning. Anything is perfect. But He is that Unknown Speaker it, Unknown Speaker it was just a need in different rooms for one room for young people. Like, say one for and a group for like five to seven. And then another group for eight and up. Unknown Speaker And I know is just gonna pass it on down. Unknown Speaker But there's one thing I gotta say, Mm hmm. Rail rocks. C Walker Absolutely it does. Unknown Speaker Thank you. C Walker And you know what I'm really I love this feedback from and about NLP Bell Academy this year. If you were at our seminar, you heard this is our first year doing it online. Because we didn't have many other choices. We could get rid of it completely or do it online. And here whenever we do something new. Are we good at it immediately. Unknown Speaker Now you got to keep trying and trying and trying again. C Walker That's right and learn from what learn how to do things better. And that's really exciting. And we still have one more NFL Academy session nfb.org to sign up if Unknown Speaker and we would really C Walker love We love to learn. We love to teach we'd love to learn in there they go hand in hand, which we'll hear pretty soon from disalvo. But first, we're going to hear from Clara and some parents but Clara Are you here my friend? Unknown Speaker Oh, there you are. C Walker Hi Claire. Welcome. Unknown Speaker Take it away. Hi, Unknown Speaker my name is Clara Isabella. Hi, my name is Clara Isabella, stealthy. I'm nine years old and I live in Pearl City, Alabama. I am going into fifth grade. But I will be taking sixth grade math lesson. Some of my favorite things are reading Braille playing music, singing songs, dancing and jujitsu. I have been a jujitsu for almost a year. I am a four stripe white belt and hoping to get my gray and white belt soon. Jiu Jitsu is a martial art that helps people know how to defend themselves when in a tough situation. Some of my coaches have had experience with blind children. So they use some adaptations to help me. They collapse Why will know where to go. They slain things. Like instead of saying put your knee here, they say put your left knee behind there Unknown Speaker your head Unknown Speaker I hold somebody else's key. So that way I do not bump into anybody or trip and fall over some other kids C Castellano that are on the ground. Unknown Speaker There are special rules for games, like in ragtag. They can't just sneak around me and grab my red, they have to grab my wrist. And they reach around to try and get my rag. Unknown Speaker We also use Constant Contact Unknown Speaker so that way, I will know where other people are. And we start with grip, which means we are holding each other deep. Then COVID came. But luckily, we had a grappling done as an iPad. Did you get new coaches allowed us to borrow some math. To make the screen bigger, Unknown Speaker we have the Unknown Speaker iPad up to the TV and of the lessons through Unknown Speaker zoom with good Unknown Speaker bump dot over the mute button and next to the gallery View button so I could do it on my own. We also use voiceover Unknown Speaker and Unknown Speaker we could all do it just the way it was. We were physically right next to each other. Thank you for allowing me to be in this kid's panel. Are there any questions? Unknown Speaker Clara, Unknown Speaker how are you? C Walker Awesome. How are all three of you so darn awesome. Now you're one. What I love how you explained how just doing things differently isn't doing things worse or, but what there's a bit, there's a phrase, it starts with the P, it's when you figure things out when you have something that's like COVID keeps you from getting to do something. And you figure out a way around that. What does that phrase we figure out your way around a problem. Unknown Speaker problems can be solved. C Walker Prop. That's it. Thank you. You're right. problem solving. And do we like problem solving? It's it says, we when we heard from three great young problem solvers today. I tell you, the future is very looking very, very good, my friends. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Salomi. Thank you. And thank you, Clara. Great job. Unknown Speaker And now thank you for having me. C Walker Now we're moving on to our parent pal. They're just as wonderful just because their parents are not quite as young. Not how many of us are. We have some great parents who are presidents of their state affiliate parent divisions, your inner PVC, we're all around the nation, which is fabulous. But it's it's really nice to have faults. Local too. It's good to get together both ways. And will first hear from Jeannette Jen, she is president of the California parents of blind children. Then we're going to hear from Linda, COPPA. wyso, President of Missouri parents of line children, but Jeanette, go ahead. Unknown Speaker Hi, and thank you guys for having me. Um, a little bit about myself for I am always been very adventurous. I am a partially sighted mostly blind though, person, Unknown Speaker and Unknown Speaker my mom was amazing, I can honestly tell you that. My mom's high expectations for me, despite being deaf blind, is really the reason why I feel like I've obtained the success that I have. And also she has these, this amazing pearlescent gray hair. I, I think most of it's because of me. But anyway, um, Unknown Speaker she never ever Unknown Speaker put boundaries on me, even though I was sight and hearing impaired. And I, ah, where there was not a lot of assistive technology. It was third grade before I had my first CCTV, Braille was not introduced to me until fourth grade. And because I was partially sighted, they didn't even consider using a cane with me until I was a teenager. So I'm kind of persevering through all of those different obstacles, was was a constant thing for me, and also trying to achieve every goal that I set for myself, or if somebody said, You know what, I just don't think that's possible. It was my mission to prove them wrong. And I continue to try to do that today. I had a wonderful 16 year career After graduating from junior college as a human resources director for a local nonprofit. And I really really excelled at that it was a really great career for me. However, then I decided I wanted to have my second child, I have a 24 year old daughter who is not blind, like myself, but I do have a seven year old son who is legally blind. And one of the things that inspired me was once when I was working well, I would say it didn't really inspire me, but it very much encouraged me to be able to sorry, have turned the speech off. I can't talk in here at the same time. Okay, so when I was working, just a little story. When I was working, I was pregnant and really excited about being pregnant. And then I learned that my condition was probably genetic, and that I would have a 50% chance of my child having it. One of the things that was told to me by a co worker was if I were you, I probably wouldn't even have tried to have children. Because I knew I would know that that condition is possibly going to be passed on. And I lost a lot of confidence for some of the people I worked with after that time. And it really inspired me to just do the best I could at parenting My child, and allowing him to be as independent as my mom allowed me. And I definitely didn't want to be one of those helicopter parents. So, um, I left my career and decided to go back to school to get a degree in psychology. And as my child has grown up and started school, I have found a passion for accessibility. And for making sure that children's are receiving the services and supports they need to be absolutely as accessible as possible. And, you know, just encouraging parents who expect more out of their schools to expect more out of their children, and to expect more out of the IEP. So right now, that's, that's one of the things I'm focusing on the most is assisting people in my state parents to expect more out of their IEP s. And we're doing a lot of good work I have met met some amazing parents, with some amazing kids. And I'm inspired by them every single day. My son, like I said, is seven now and he just participated in Bell Academy, which was a great experience, even though it was virtual. It was just so much fun to work with him every day on the various activities of Braille literacy, and to also encourage some of the other parents in my local area that also had children on that session, we kind of all decided, we're going to put our kids in the same session, and kind of encourage each other, please be quiet I saw just came in. Um, and I have always done my back the most out of him, and to encourage him to do what ever he set his mind to. And I'm just really, really fortunate that he's such a hard worker, and he tries so hard. He actually received an award from his school district this last semester. And it's an award that's given to six students in the entire district. And it's for exceeding Unknown Speaker What was it called, The award was basically for exceeding the expectations despite obstacles, and I am so proud of him every day for the hard work he puts in. And I'm so fortunate to work with so many amazing parents in my, in my state. I do want to let everybody know that after COVID-19, I decided to start a zoom session that's offered every Saturday been offered for the last three weeks, because we've been preparing for convention, but the zoom link will go out on the nfp.org list. And everybody will have a chance if you guys want to participate feel free. It's kind of a brainstorming session and a way of us parents connecting on the issues that we're having with accessibility with our children. Either it's find parents that are trying to access their child's education or whether it's parents with blind children, everyone is welcome. So be looking for that. We also have a Facebook group, which is the California parents blind children division Facebook group, feel free to join that group. Unknown Speaker Even if you're not in Unknown Speaker California, we'd love to have you any allies or parents or or blind people that can offer support to our families is welcome. And thank you, Carlton and the NFB for allowing me to speak today. Um, feel free to ask questions if you have any also. C Walker Thank you so much. That's wonderful. Thank you very, very much. And now Linda, you're ready to go. Let's welcome Linda cook wyso, President of the Missouri parents of blind children. Hello, everybody. Unknown Speaker I'm honored to be asked to participate in this parent panel. I've been a member of NFP since the fall of 2018. Not nearly as long as I should have been. My children are 18 and 15. And both girls and both completely blind. I am also a blind mom. Life has been fairly good as far as the girls getting the services they need for the most part in the schools. However, my younger or my older daughter she He had decided when she was probably about six or seven that Braille was just not going to be her thing. And she had decided to put up a pretty good fight. And I basically told her at the age of seven, that you will learn Braille as long as you live in my house. And when you move out and go out on your own, and you, you can make that decision as to whether or not you want to use it, but you will know Braille. And you will use Braille in school, and you will use Braille here at home. And we had major battles and homework got thrown down the stairs, and we had all kinds of fun. But guess what, she is a very avid, she's not a reader, but with everything she does with social media and texting with her phone and, and things with her computer and such. She's got that Braille display right there. And she's using Braille for all of those needs. Unknown Speaker The Unknown Speaker thing that I think that I thought I had to do when my kids were born, because I can relate to the situation where a lot of people said, Well, how dare you have blind children or children because, you know, they could be blind. Obviously, we had a disease that was hereditary because my mother had it. And we didn't know what it was. We had no clue until my daughter was my oldest daughter was five months old. Then we found out that it was Leber's congenital amaurosis. And the reason why that even matters is because it was a form of Leber's congenital amaurosis, that was probably the most rare in that it is autosomal dominant to where I don't need it, my husband does not need to be a carrier to pass that on. So it's just me. And I got a lot, a lot and lost a lot of respect for people also for the same reason. So but I did and I had miscarriages. And it was obvious that I was meant to have two children and they are again, I say 18 and 15. They are fairly close to one another, they have the same birthday. And we I will give you a little bit of background on what brought me into the NFB I think I thought that I had to do this thing on my own, that it was my responsibility. I brought these kids into these world into this world as a as a blind mom, and they were blind because of me, and so I was the one that had to make everything happen for my kids. And it took me far too long to realize. There's a saying that it takes a village to raise a child and the village was not going to be found out there in the world. For sure. I mean, I definitely have some people that I can that I can say were there for my kids and I as far as teachers and things like that. But my village has been national organization of parents and blind children in the NFB, and my, my local and state chapter and I would not, I would not give that family up for anything. And I'm very happy to be part of the NFB family. I will speak a little bit real quickly about the virtual experience. I've heard some stories that were very sad. And, you know, with, especially with the younger kids that, you know, schools just refuse to bring those items to the child or make sure that children hand those items. And I have been fighting for probably two or three years for my kids to be using computers in jobs. And this year, I took that into my own hands when virtual school came became a thing. And guess what my kids function greatly on all this stuff that wasn't supposed to be accessible on the equipment that they were providing my kids, and I had a nice little chat with the IEP team and supposedly we're supposed to have any equipment this year for both of my girls as far as the jobs and the computers and braille displays. And so we'll we will see where that goes. Because my next two words were going to be due process. I'm I'm actually in a way, as frustrating as it is we make the best of a bad situation make lemons into lemonade, and virtual school worked out in that regard very well for our family. Thank you so C Walker much, Linda. That's wonderful. It's deciding how we can make things happen, even if we don't necessarily think that we can. We know we should maybe we don't think we can and we're going to hear Nat net from the NFB 2020, distinguished educator of blind children. Graziella Oliver. She speaks her story speaks directly to not necessarily having knowing that we can but making it work anyway. And her address to us is entitled virtual reality versus reality. Welcome bresaola. Let's see we got on mute. Wait a second. We can't we can't hear you. bresaola. Can you unmute yourself? If you can't, I'll try to figure it out. Perfect. Unknown Speaker There you go. Good afternoon, and be members and parents of brown blind children. First of all, I'd like to extend my grateful and heartfelt thanks to the following persons for choosing me as this year's National Federation of the Blind distinguished teacher of blind children. My thanks go out to the following people. Mr. Mark riccobono Miss Carla McQuillan, Miss Carlton and cook Walker. Miss Kimberly banks is Norma Crosby is Liz wise Carver, Daniel Martinez, who is my student and who initiated this nomination. And to our local National Federation of the Blind organization here in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. We support and always look to me for direction and input. I want to thank God for giving me this ability. And it made it possible for me to serve those students, whom he's placed in my path to teach. Thanks to all of you for thinking so highly of me. I'm humbled and honored to be a part of NFB, and for this prestigious award as well as for the opportunity to serve others through the National Federation for the blind. I only ask that I be permitted to continue working with the blind and visually impaired for many more years to come. And that I make all of you proud. May God bless you. My philosophy for working with blind and visually impaired students. And what I feel is my real purpose in life is education. The education that I've given my students, allows them to compete independently alongside their sighted peers. And to be able to serve a legacy to lead excuse me a legacy to others that follow in their footsteps. I've seen my students forge ahead and make use of knowledge gained along with opportunities experienced. This has been done with active participation not only by the students themselves, but by with the active participation of their parents, your family members supporting them along their educational path. Actively active participation that leads them to become a community of participants, and involve what they have learned through roleplay discussions, reading aloud to others making use of experiences in Braille skills, and low vision techniques, participation in organizations such as National Federation of the Blind clubs, civic groups, and other endeavors. My most memorable experience in working with blind and visually impaired students has been when I realized that what I've taught my students has been literally magnified million times over for students and adults in another country. For me, that has been in Mexico, I'd assume that they knew even the most basic of Braille tactual and technology, as well as orientation mobility skills. But that's not always true. So you start from the beginning and assume nothing. That's reality. Miss Carlton and cook Walker asked me what the title of my speech would be. And I said, virtual reality versus reality. How is this you say? Well, I never thought of teaching blind or visually impaired students. As a matter of fact, I was teaching Home Economics food service skills to middle school students when I was approached about a blind student requesting to be in my class. What No way. I don't want to work with blind kids. I'm not trained to work with them. But God has another plan. This blind students vi teacher told me that he had every right to be in my class. And that I had the responsibility as a vocational teacher to teach him just as I was teaching all the other students in that class. Well, by the time the whole conversation was over, we were both a big Miss. She walked out of my classroom crying, and I walked over the principal's office crying my eyes out, telling him that there was no way this was ever going to happen. And then I would rather quit and do this. Unknown Speaker He called me down and said, Let's talk tomorrow. When I came in the next day, right before me, as I signed in, there was a poster that read, University of Texas teachers of the blind, will be coming down to the region, one Services Center, and will be offering classes for educators to become certified teachers of the blind and visually impaired. This really made me angry, as I hadn't seen this before. And I approached the principal's saying, you did this on purpose. He told me and he hadn't seen that. But that maybe it was a sign from a higher power. At that point, he asked me if I believed in God, and that he has plans for us that sometimes we don't pay attention to. He told me that maybe we could see what that plan was, and that we could work it out together. If I was willing to do so. By that afternoon, he got the information that was needed. And that was the beginning of my entry into the world of VI. The information stated that I would need to go to Edinburgh, which is a city about 45 miles away to take classes every other weekend, starting Fridays, and ending on Sunday afternoons. This meant cutting out on my classes getting a substitute all too much for me to handle. But my principal made the arrangements for me to be out and not stress out too much. This also meant that I would be traveling back and forth, which meant gas money. times were hard and money was tight in my family. Or for even us to make arrangements to stay at a hotel. Unknown Speaker Both Unknown Speaker traveling and staying at the hotel, were later paid by the university. For those of us us taking the courses. Books would also be need need to be bought registrations again. Later, the University also provided these at no cost. Things just started falling into place. I really couldn't believe it. After all my coursework was done. I got a call from the special ed department of my school district, saying they were needing my services. At that time, I reluctantly left home economics. But in hindsight, I've never looked back, as this was definitely my calling. Now I know you do what the Lord has planned for you not what you want. This is reality. I've learned that visual impairments come in all shapes, sizes and ages. My oldest student was 95 year old woman. Her student her son called me because he'd heard that I might be able to help him with his mother's visual impairment and problems that were arising at home. The gentleman told me that his parents were quite old and that he did didn't know how to handle certain visual problems that they were experiencing. He invited me to go over to his parents home and see how we could come up with ideas that might help. One problem was that his parents had an upstairs bedroom. When his father would go downstairs, he turned off the light. The stairwell was painted a dark brown and since it was an old home, there were no handrails for her to use. So when his mother would want to go downstairs, she had trouble seeing the steps. And this caused her a lot of problems. Also, the light switch was downstairs, and her husband was extremely hard of hearing and couldn't hear her calling him to turn on the light for her. There were other household problems that we figured out just like adding lighting to the staircase rungs moving furniture around so his mom could make use of most of the sunlight. Ordering some magnification devices She's still like to read her own mail, easy items to take care of. But reality at any age, ring a bell Academy. Yes, it's an ongoing and it be summer activity that allows me to put into practice, not only working with several academic and technology areas, but working with parents as well. It's been great working with NFB teachers, exchanging ideas, and working with the students from our surrounding areas, many of whom this was the first time they participate in something like this. But it's also been great working with parents who come in and need some training and ideas about how to handle something they feel is a difficult way to present a skill, such as tying a shoe maybe, or dealing with their own guilty feelings, and not letting their child be independent. This is reality. Our local NFB chapter has initiated a program called cambiando vidas, which means changing lives. As a teacher of the blind, I've had the opportunity to work not only here in the Rio Grande Valley. But with our blind and visually impaired students. Through this program, we've gotten the chance of going into Mexico, and working with blind adults. The program is a means of presenting skills and experiences that many of these adults have not had previously. Doing this in Spanish and trying to make sense of it all, not only to them, but to me as well. This has opened up my eyes in a different way of teaching. And as these are adults that have other skills and needs, that makes it even tougher. Unknown Speaker In the United States, it's easy to fall back on equipment, and items and skills that we take for granted such as making use of the Perkins Brailler. That's extremely hard to come by in Mexico. And learning to read and write Braille, just experiencing what the Braille alphabet feels like for them. grilling a tortilla with cheese, cutting up fruit for a fruit salad, orientation and mobility skills. adult men and women helping themselves out or being independent for their own needs. Much of this was not happening. There is still that mentality of poor little blind men or woman syndrome. We've got to help them do everything. Then, of course, there's that macho syndrome. I'm a man and man doesn't help out in any way. That's why my mother, my wife, my sister there, they can do this for me. Mind you, this has been by far the hardest area of teaching that I've had to deal with trying to break those barriers. But that's reality. Working in Mexico with blind or visually impaired persons is not the only bridge I've had to cross in my teaching career. My husband is on the good neighbor settlement house board, where we both help out as volunteers. It is a nonprofit organization that provides the homeless of Brownsville, Texas, food and essential items. It was also helping asylum seekers coming in from other countries such as on dudas and Salvador, and Cuba to name a few. It was at this time when my husband called me to come and speak to a parent with a young blind child. They had been their good neighbor, and they were waiting for a family member in Dallas to send them a bus ticket to reunite with them there. I spoke to the mother and found out that she had left her country of El Salvador in order to try to see how she could find a better life for this one child. She had left her other three children with their dad back in El Salvador. Maybe to never see them again. I asked her what she was thinking she'd be doing with this child. She started to cry and she told me she had no idea what to do. And now she was so far away from home. And with a scared child. I was able to talk to her about getting a hold of a school district once she got there and to let them know that Her child was blind, and would need help right away. That person was so grateful. She said she felt a great weight removed from her shoulders, and knew that her child would benefit from her being brought to the United States. Even if it was only for a little while. Now that's reality. Education of blind children can happen in any way in anywhere. This is exactly what happened this year with this COVID-19 situation. Students went from face to face teaching to virtual online classes. For me, this was a first as well as for my students. But the most interesting part of this was teaching a virtual online class with a student located in Mexico. And she had wanted to be with her mother, who had been deported a couple of months before. teaching a nimeth tutorial class online to a totally blind student is hard enough. But doing this virtually and going back and forth, as to port and where her dots were located, on our nimeth code problems was a real eye opener. Literally. There were times when we had to cancel class, because there was no Wi Fi get count on that in Mexico because of personal family problems, because the family was going through problems with the cartel. Thankfully, we were able to finish off this year and finished the nimal Namath tutorials. All the more you're able to confront obstacles, and face problems head on here or anywhere, using any platform that reality. Unknown Speaker So my reality in my almost 40 year, vi career has been one of adapting to new challenges. I've gone from adapting to being a home economics teacher, to adapting to being a teacher of the blind and visually impaired. I've had to adapt to teaching adults in a second language, using technology or available resources that are completely foreign to them. Most recently, I have adapted to virtual learning in an area in an era of global pandemic. Mostly I've learned to adapt to one undeniable fact. It's not about doing what I want, or being where I want to be at all times. It's about being where I needed in God's plan. I'd like to finish by reading a quote by Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, American Association of retired persons. Human contribution is the essential ingredient. It is only in the giving of oneself to others that we truly live. Thank you again to everyone I mentioned at the beginning. And to everyone here present who took the time to listen to my journey. I can't thank you all enough for the recognition and look forward to continuing my journey in helping the lives of the blind and visually impaired in my community, and communities that I can help out with. Good afternoon. Thank you. C Walker Thank you so much. bresaola. Fabulous. Unknown Speaker Thank you. Thank C Walker you so much committee did a great job, obviously. We're honored to have you speak with us today. Thank you so much. We actually we have a one minute but let's take a five minute break Unknown Speaker up. C Walker So if folks want to stand up, move around, stretch. Whatever. We'll do that now. We've just been so jam packed. We haven't done any of our door prizes yet. So before we take a break. Let us draw draw port door prize this door prize will be a a bots of Braille paper 1000 sheets is a gift certificate for 1000 sheets of Braille paper either continuous feed or cut. And this is from through the generosity of American thermoform through Robert Jake Lewis, thank you very much. I have we have fought to have or had full registrations for our conference Unknown Speaker and C Walker will be eligible to vote today. And those are the names from which we will Unknown Speaker choose C Walker do the door prize drawing, we have pulled board members, spouses, children of board members, everybody else. So this these are registered folks who are in line for it. Here's how it goes, I have a random number generator, I'm going to put it on my share the screen for that. And we have num, and whatever the then I have a spreadsheet that has everybody's name alphabetically. So let and I will first do our random number generator. let's generate a number 64. Alrighty, then. And I'm going to stop the share. And then I'm going to share again, I'm not sure if this is sufficient. You don't need to see the spreadsheet every time at all. It just says the spreadsheet this time. And number 64 is done. Oh. Danielle Ragusa from Gonzales, Louisiana. Danielle, are you in the meeting? I'm not hearing you, Danielle. Okay, we're going are you there, Danielle? Okay, I'm looking for Danielle Ragusa. Going once. Danielle going twice. We're gonna generate another number now. We have 88 if y'all are okay with just trusting me, please. Elizabeth Williams middles. Middleburg Florida. Elizabeth Going once, going twice. Hammer generate another number gone. 66 is Terry rebloom from South Rockwood Michigan. Terry. Are you there? Okay, going once going twice. Gone. We have 35 tim Hart, Tucson, Arizona. Are you here Tim? No, we have Tim Metcalf but not Tim Hart. Okay. Going, going? Gone. I'll tell you. I there are lots of folks here. I'm not sure why we're not picking you. Okay, we have Allison Stevens, New Jersey. Ridgewood, New Jersey. Alison Stevens, are you here? Okay, I'm gonna do one more and otherwise, we're just gonna take a break and we'll try to restore prizes later. 45 is Darrell Hilliker. Darrell, are you here? Darrell Hilliker I know your bride was here earlier. I don't know if you are going once Sal's if you're going to rope him up, up, Allison's not on anymore either. Okay. We're going to be adjourned for five minutes. For a break, stretch. Whatever you need to do. I'm going to share a song, some one of our NFB songs. And I will get that started here. There we go. So enjoy five minutes. Unknown Speaker Carl I sent you a note if you wanted to look at it on the if you wanted to share any of those audio or video files C Walker okay my friends one more song and then when the song ends we'll join back up. Oh dear. Okay, golly, we haven't get the commercial. Wait a second. Okay, here we go. Check. Thank you. Now we are back. I had to step off it when the music first came on because I started dancing and my husband reminded me I was on video. And as our long child likes to say she, I don't I'm not blind enough to that. Listen with you know. Welcome back, everyone. I'll give you a couple of minutes or so to get back. I failed. embarrassingly failed to acknowledge our other our fabulous past winners of the NFP to stay distinguished blind educator award in this room. I know of a few of them. And I would love for you to raise your hand and add your video if you would. Great educators often don't like the spotlight. But I still want them to. We have Casey Robertson. Jackie Anderson, and we have this year Britt Gussy. Ella there's Jackie hi Jackie and gasi Ella's 2020s I believe Gail Wagner may be in the room. Gail, see both shy well too shy sometimes it's okay. And if there are any others that I am missing, please announce yourself, please. I would like to I just can't necessarily scroll that well with my lovely computer. Unknown Speaker Carla, Unknown Speaker I'm here. Unknown Speaker Carla Kearns. Unknown Speaker Karl currents. Hi. C Walker Yeah, we're thanks Carla. Okay, as we're waiting to just before we start let's see if we can get that random number generator to get us a Oh, come on. Excuse me second. Get a a door Prize winner because we have some sheets of Braille paper that want a new home and Doggone it it's not fair that they don't have it so. Okay. Just give me a second please mark the ram on my computer is nowhere near what it needs to be for what I want to do with it. 88 is on my spreadsheet. Elizabeth Williams again of Middleburg Florida. Elizabeth, are you here because earlier, and then we have Danielle Ragusa from Gonzales, Louisiana again. I'm going to give two door prizes. This time. We're gonna keep going till we get to. Hey, I'm Kim, then tola, Concord, New Hampshire. Somebody just call out when I'm not checking the hand raising and such or call out and mute yourself something when it's you. So we have crystal Guillory Ruston, Louisiana. I know she said another meeting Oh dear. Unknown Speaker This is this is the problem. C Walker Okay. Now we have Tiffany Harris, San Antonio, Texas. nading wern scottsbluff Nebraska. Janette Jones Modesto, California. One of our speakers. Let's hope she's still on. Got Kim ventola from Concord New Hampshire again, says this random. Unknown Speaker I hear Colton, C Walker that Jeanette Yeah. Right. We have one. Let's get one work. We can. And this was Laurie Martel, Plymouth Massachusetts. Laurie going, going? Gone and nothing new hampshire's really representing? Unknown Speaker I'm here, C Walker Heather. Hi, Laurie. Laurie, you're here. Okay. Yes, thanks so much. Absolutely. Please put in the chat room and I'll get your content different while I have your hundred information, but it would help me if you would do that, too. It's Laurie and Jeanette. I'm just gonna highlight real quickly here so it will help me and then if I had called out one more person, and that was number. Oh, come on. 47. That was number het 47 Heather Hussey, you're here whether you win if you don't, okay. There'll be other chances. Unknown Speaker Alrighty. C Walker Okay, so, now we're going to open our business meeting this portion of our meeting and we will start with our incomparable We are so lucky to have this person as our treasurer. She has not only a great friend, a terrific mother. She's a CPA and a partner at Ernst and Young have been so lucky. Please welcome Sandra Oliver. Unknown Speaker Oh, you're too kind. Thank C Walker you. Oh, not found enough. Unknown Speaker Right back at you, dear. C Walker Okay, Unknown Speaker so um, Unknown Speaker I'll report on the national organization parents of blind children's financials for the year ending December 31 2019. And just as a reminder, and that these are, you know, what I'm gonna report on is not a complete set of financial statements that are required by asep requirements is they don't include all the reports and disclosures. But we do report to the NFB as an affiliate and monthly and they do review our financials. So As of December 31 2019, we had the following cash balances, we had restricted cash of $16,587 and 64 cents unrestricted cash at $15,409 and 46 cents, for total cash of $31,997 and 10 cents. Our income for the calendar year end December 31 2019, was as follows. We had $13,835 and 25 cents and total income of which was derived, we have $3,000 and 25 cents in general donations $4,070 in restricted donations, $3,850 in no PVC conference registration fees, and $2,867 in fundraising, and then $48 in dues. So for expenses for the calendar year end, December 31 2019, those expenses totaled $26,345, and 72 cents, of which those represented $15,944 and 59 cents of restricted payments. And we had a donation to the fee of 20 $500. We spent $5,636 and 18 cents on an O PVC conference costs at last year's convention, board travel to be at various conventions to speak and support. Other states have $1,084 and 68 cents, fundraising costs of $1,039 and 80 cents and PayPal fees of $140 and 47 cents. That concludes my Treasurer's Report. Thank you. I'm you Carlton. C Walker Sorry about that. Are there any questions or I can entertain a motion? Unknown Speaker Move adoption of the Treasurer's Report? Second, C Walker it's been moved by cork and seconded by Carol and Unknown Speaker I'm okay C Walker to step the cursor support. If it's a little different here in our virtual environment, but please don't vote unless you're a member. Unknown Speaker But C Walker if we if we're going to do a voice vote, but if it does seem like we need to do it a poll polling vote we will and that's true for this and for the elections. But please, on your honor, don't vote unless you're a member. Thank you. Okay, it's been moved by corporate Connor and seconded by Carol customer that we accept the fabulous Treasurer's Report provided by NPC treasure Sandra Oliver. All in favor, please vote Yay. Unknown Speaker Yay. C Walker I please say net nay passes unanimously. And that. Hey, we are now moving into our elections. I now call for the report from the nominating committee and our nominating chair is Carol Castellano, Carol. C Castellano Okay, two items. Before I give this report, I will give the report and cartoon will ask for a motion to accept the report and a second, and we'll vote to accept the report. And we just want to tell anyone who might be new to this kind of thing that this is not the vote to actually elect the people, just the vote to accept the report. Secondly, we wanted to let people know that usually, our organization asks the executive board to stay on for a number of terms so that we give the organization good stability. And we usually ask our board members to serve for shorter terms, so that we can give other members an opportunity to be in a leadership role, and to take a more active role in the organization, and so that the organization can benefit from the ideas and abilities of as many people as passed. However, this year, being a rather unusual year for us all. The nominating committee felt it might be best to just ask everyone to remain in their roles for this election, so that we can deal better with all of the uncertainties that we're living with and facing at this time. And next year. We hope we can return to our usual methods invite new people to join us on the board. C Walker We have a consulting let's see, again was mainly to mute. Absolutely. Unknown Speaker happy to talk to you about any of those activities. Unknown Speaker Can we can C Walker I got you? I got her muted. Okay. Okay, C Castellano so here is the report for the position of President the Committee recommends Carlton Carlton Walker, or First Vice President Penny Duffy, or second vice president. Kimberly thanks for Secretary Carol Castellano, for treasurer, Treasurer Sandra Oliver. For the 10 board positions the Committee recommends. One Jackie Anderson to Sarah are three Jeanne full bore. Pamela, Deborah five, Carla burns six Tabby Mitchell seven. Michelle Marie eight core O'Connor. Nine Melissa riccobono. Casey West Robertson, and Madam President. That concludes my report. Unknown Speaker Thank you. C Walker Thank you very much. Now I'm going to ask for a motion to accept the nomination please report. This is not a vote on is not part it's not the election itself of any individual mentioned in the nominating committee report. It is merely a vote to accept the report as submitted. I so move second. And who was seconded. Linda? Unknown Speaker Did Linda cocoa. C Walker Oh, woodland. Okay, great. Um, so, Kenny. Linda motion? Fabulous. And all in favor? Unknown Speaker Aye. Aye. Aye. Hi. C Walker All opposed. It does pass fabulous. Now, it's time to hold the actual elections. Typically, the president oversees the runs the elections, but not only is it bad for him, it's not really possible for me to run the affection for president since I'm standing for that office. So I asked Carol. Carol has agreed to do that. C Castellano Okay. The committee has placed the name of Carlton Walker in nomination for the position of President. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Unknown Speaker I'm Colton is electric by acclamation. Unknown Speaker And nomination cease? Unknown Speaker I'm sorry. Second. C Castellano Okay. All those in favor of electing Carlton as President, please say aye. Unknown Speaker Aye. Aye. Aye. C Castellano Opposed, please say nay. Carlton, congratulations. C Walker Thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm going to point out not that might not matter to anybody else. But this is the very first time I've been elected to any position on the inner PVC board that my husband, the mythical Steve Walker was in was present. So I totally got here. So one plus about the virtual convention. Unknown Speaker Thank C Walker you so much. I really appreciate it. I appreciate the trust you've placed in me and I can tell you that this is such a that fabulous board. So hard working so much talent. We're very blessed. So thank you very much. The nominating committee has put in put has put forward the name of Penny Duffy to serve as first vice president of the board. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Unknown Speaker Move the nomination? seems to me like Penny by acclamation. C Walker Can't do it yet. have to ask one more time. Are there any nominations from the floor? Unknown Speaker Sorry, miscounted. No. Unknown Speaker Okay. C Walker There's motion by Korb to cease nominations and alette Penny by acclamation. Is there a second? Okay, it is moved and seconded to see some donations and let Penny Duffy as first vice president of the National Organization of parents of blind children by acclamation. So all in favor, Unknown Speaker Aye. C Walker Aye. All opposed? Congratulations, Penny, congratulations, us. Unknown Speaker I'll just quote what President Bono said and says we still have more work to do. C Walker Absolutely. Fabulous. Thank you. Okay, and now the nominating committee has placed the name of Kimberly banks into nomination for the second roll of second vice president position second vice president of the inner PBC. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the ether? Okay, I couldn't resist because we don't have a floor. Unknown Speaker nominations C Walker from the floor. C Castellano Move that nominations Unknown Speaker face and C Castellano that senate. I'm sorry, Kimberly, elected by acclamation. Unknown Speaker Second. C Walker It's been moved and seconded that nominations cease and Kimberly paints be elected to the position of second vice president of the inner PPC by acclamation. All in favor, Aye. Unknown Speaker Aye. C Walker All opposed. Congratulations, Kimberly. And again, congratulations, us. Unknown Speaker Thank you, Unknown Speaker my son sitting next to me. He voted nay. C Walker Not a paid member. Sorry. Sorry, Joe. Thank you so much. You. Anything else? Kimberly? No, no, that Unknown Speaker was all. Thank Unknown Speaker you guys. C Walker Kimberly is a woman few words, but tons of work, and tons of talents. So we're lucky to have her. The nominating committee has placed named Carol castellana and into nomination for the position of Secretary of the national organization of parents of blind children. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor, Unknown Speaker moved to cease nominations and Carol elected elected by acclamation? C Walker It has been moved and seconded that nominations cease and Carol Hassan would be elected to the position of Secretary of the PPC by acclamation. All in favor, Unknown Speaker Aye. C Walker Aye. All opposed. Congratulations, Carol. Thank you. And again, congratulations to us. C Castellano Thank you so much. I will continue to work hard for this organization that I love so much. C Walker nominating committee has placed name of Sandra Oliver, CPA back in the position of Treasurer of inner PBC. Are there any other nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Unknown Speaker I move that nomination cease in Sandra be elected by acclamation. Second, C Walker it's been moved and seconded that nomination seats and Sandra Oliver be elected by acclamation. All in favor? Unknown Speaker Aye. Aye. C Walker Aye. All opposed. Yay, Sandra gratulations. Unknown Speaker Thank you guys. Look forward to another great year. Thank you. C Walker Thank you. We do too. And for a fabulous executive board election. Let's have some door prizes. Okay. So Mita set sets Setsuna from Morrisville, North Carolina. He got to be here. That's my home state. So I got to have we got to present represent. Okay, Stacy Harris. Gulfport, Mississippi. All righty. Amanda Winkler, Riverside, California. Rob Harris, Colorado. Unknown Speaker Hi, I'm here. Unknown Speaker Hi, C Walker Rob. Congratulations. thousand sheets of foil paper. You're gonna get a gift certificate, Unknown Speaker and C Walker you'll get to choose whether it's gonna be Cut sheets or tractor fed back, we go through an embosser. Yay. Unknown Speaker Hey, very cool. How exciting. Thank you very much. C Walker very welcome. Um, let's, let's give away the rest of the Braille paper. Now to. Let's see what we have. I'm Stephanie Martin Ruston, Louisiana. Are you here Stephanie? Unknown Speaker I am here Carl 2000 C Walker sheets of Braille paper for Stephanie. That is fabulous. Good job. Okay. Let me just make sure I mark you, Rob, because that's important. All right. We the nominating committee has placed the name of up has given us a list of board candidates. The name of Jackie Anderson has been placed into nomination for board position one. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Unknown Speaker Move that nomination cease and Jackie be like to back up Unknown Speaker a Second. C Walker It's been moved and seconded that nominations cease and that Jackie, be elected by acclamation. All in favor say aye. Unknown Speaker Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. C Walker All opposed? Unknown Speaker Congratulations, Jackie. C Walker If you want to say a few words, Jackie, you may but you know, we believe that Unknown Speaker you want so you You decide. I'm sorry. I was speaking to the PI. C Walker Yeah, multitasking. That was gonna happen. Unknown Speaker Yes, thank you guys so much. I It is a privilege to serve and I will Unknown Speaker continue to do what I can. C Walker What you can is very wonderful. So thank you. Thank you so much. The nominating committee has placed the name of Sarah, erm. into for consideration for board member number two. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? C Castellano Move that nominations be closed and Sarah be elected by acclamation. C Walker It has been moved and seconded that nominations be closed and that sir or be elected to the board position to buy affirmation. All in favor? Unknown Speaker Aye. Unknown Speaker Aye. Unknown Speaker All right. All opposed. C Castellano Congratulations, Sarah. Hey, Sarah. Unknown Speaker Again, you are part of a group. C Walker Thank you, Sara. Thank you very much. The nominating committee has placed the name of gene faults into nomination for for position three. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Unknown Speaker That nomination cease and Unknown Speaker Jean Irby elected? Yeah. Unknown Speaker Jim be elected by acclamation. Unknown Speaker Sorry. No worries. C Walker Is there a second? Unknown Speaker Second. C Walker It's been moved and seconded that nomination. C's and G. Folks be elected by acclamation to the board. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed nay. Congratulations, Jean. Unknown Speaker Thank you. Unknown Speaker Glad to be here again with all of you. C Walker We're glad to have you. The domain committee has placed the name of Pamela gebert. In for consideration for or position number four. Yeah. Try to keep up. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? C Castellano then none nomination season Pamela be elected by acclamation. Second, C Walker moved and seconded that nomination season. Pamela be elected by acclamation. All in favor, Aye. Unknown Speaker Aye. C Walker All opposed? Congratulations, sanwa. Okay, the nomination committee has placed into consideration named Carla current for a board position five. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Unknown Speaker Move that nomination? Unknown Speaker Please. Go ahead and Unknown Speaker copy by acclamation. C Walker And is there a second second? It's been moved and seconded that nomination season that Carla be electric. All in favor, say aye. Hi. All Opposed nay. Unknown Speaker Congratulations, Carla. Unknown Speaker Thank you. C Walker Right. The num neg committee has done it and Tabby Mitchell to serve as in board position six. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any motions? Unknown Speaker I made a command I moved in. C Castellano nomination Cece and Tabby be elected by acclamation. C Walker It is there a second? Second? It has been moved and seconded that a nomination cease and Tabby be elected by acclamation on favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed nay. Congratulations, havey. Abby's working on digit digital technology stuff so she gave us thumbs up. The name of Michelle Marie has been placed in nomination for fourth position sits in a PVC board seven or position seven, seven since it. Michelle Marie from inner PPC board position seven. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? M Riccobono Move that nomination? See. So Michelle be like the backup nation Unknown Speaker checking. C Walker It has been moved and seconded that nomination. Cece and Michelle be elected by acclamation. All in favor say aye. Second, Unknown Speaker hi. C Walker And all opposed say nay. Very, very good. Congratulations, Michelle. Yay. Thank you happy to serve again. That's why the nominating committee has placed name of Korb O'Connor in two for consideration for inner PPC board position eight. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? I'm good. M Riccobono I think we both move. And we both second that core be like tobacco nation and nomination seats. C Walker It has been moved and seconded that nomination seats in court be elected to the board by acclamation. All in favor say aye. Unknown Speaker Aye. Aye. C Walker All opposed oppose nay. Congratulations, Gore. Unknown Speaker Thank you very much. I challenge each of you to bring a dad into the nopb. Yay, representation. C Walker Yes, diversity is important. The nominating committee has nominated Melissa riccobono to serve in board position nine. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Unknown Speaker I knew that nominations cease Unknown Speaker and that we elect the talented Melissa riccobono by acclamation. Unknown Speaker Second, C Walker it has been moved and seconded that nominations cease. And that Melissa riccobono be elected by acclamation. All in favor, Unknown Speaker Aye. C Walker All opposed? M Riccobono Thank you very much. I appreciate your confidence in me, I am excited to serve. And I just have to let all of you know, I don't know that I have worked with a group of more dedicated and hardworking people. This is a wonderful board. And we're, we're just excited. I know all of us to keep going with the work that needs to be done. And just because you're not on the board, and I'm sure Carlton is going to say this too. But just because you're not on the board doesn't mean that there's not work to do and doesn't mean that we don't want your ideas. And we just would really welcome you to come and join us because there is so much more work to do than we can do by ourselves. So but I'm happy to keep doing it. Maybe after Sunday, like maybe I could have one day off to sleep. But other than that, I'm ready to go. Unknown Speaker You're here. C Walker Thank you so much, Melissa are talented and tireless conference director. The nominating maybe has placed the name of Casey West Robertson in for consideration for enter PPC board position 10. Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Are there any nominations from the floor? Moving on? We Unknown Speaker should see somebody like Casey Baca mention. C Walker It has been moved and seconded that nominations cease and that we elect Pacey by acclamation. All in favor, Unknown Speaker Aye. Aye. C Walker All opposed. Unknown Speaker Yay, Casey. C Robinson Hey, thanks, guys. I have enjoyed working this year with you guys. I would appreciate next year not having a pandemic. But we have. We have thought outside the box and we've worked greatly together and I am looking forward to another great year. Unknown Speaker I'm with Melissa. Unknown Speaker Let's get started Monday. C Walker Yep, I'm Casey. I will put on my to do list make more pandemics? It's on my to do list, Unknown Speaker I promise. Yes. Yes. Yes, I can. Can we have a hard work on that? Unknown Speaker A bit. Pardon? Unknown Speaker Can we have Carla work on that? Yeah, she C Walker said, we have a Carla is a physician, a talented musician and educator at the university. I think she should be on the committee for that. That's right. Before we move on, and we do have a little bit we do have more. I do want to do a door prize. Our second vice president Kimberly Bates graciously donated several pieces of technology to a store prizes. She didn't want me to acknowledge her but she didn't forbid me from doing it. So I'm not so I'm doing it. We have a an echo.an Amazon echo.on which you can listen to convention, but it probably won't get there in time. But you can also listen to Newsline and your child can listen to Newsline great service from NFB Newsline. So let's do some generating generating some numbers. Say Heather Hussey Are you back see your name? It's been called a couple of times my friend. Let's keep going. Lisa lovepop la la puthoff ski from Pennsylvania. I've got to make contact with her but she doesn't seem to be here now. But we definitely want to have a great winter for our great board that has just been elected. Terry reom called you earlier Miss Michigan. Um, let's see now we're going to talk with Nicole Anthony Kennesaw, Georgia. Donna Gauss, Washington, Utah or Utah or Utah. Washington, Utah. Hailey dare, Michigan. Denise Mackin stat. I think she's in the pod meeting. Jackie you got taught her should have been here to Connie bingum. Janet, Jeanne Washington State. Unknown Speaker I'm here. C Walker Very good. Okay, that is an echo.to. You my friend. Unknown Speaker Oh, wow. Unknown Speaker Thank you. C Walker Thank you, Ben. Thank you for Kimberly for making that happen. Unknown Speaker Thank you, Kimberly. C Walker I'm just going to make a note for myself because, you know, okay, as Melissa was saying, board positions are, obviously we are dedicated to the board, but we can't do it alone. And we don't want to do it alone. We are enriched by diversity, and we want your help and your ideas. And we, together we can grow so much. So please, please reach out. And let us know, board committees are not exclusive to board, we would love to have non board members serve on committees as well. So you could serve on a committee or off a committee or on more than one committee. There. The work is far more important any title could be. And we believe that and we know you do too, so please don't hesitate to reach out to us anytime. And please answer when we reach out to you because we'll be maybe reaching out to you. And please know that we value you and we want you to be involved. We are now moving to our brainstorming part portion of the meeting. So let's storm. M Riccobono So we would love to know things that at worked well this time. Things You know, we don't have a lot of time. I think we're ending around five, right? Carlsen. C Walker Yes. Okay. M Riccobono I mean, five or a little after, but C Walker you know, the longer general session starts at seven, M Riccobono right? I'm able to be or I won't be able to be in, I get I can probably be in for a bit after five. Anyway, because I need to be ready at the headquarters of the NFB to do precentage session, banter with my friend Neil Lewis. So if you want to join in to the session, 30 minutes before and you'll hear Neil and I kind of bantering back and forth. But yes, we can definitely, you know, definitely stay a bit. Unknown Speaker But please, we'd M Riccobono love to know what things you liked what things we'd love to know what you like that That's nice. We would really love to know, things you'd like more of or things that you felt were missing this year that you'd like to see us try next year or throughout the year, you know, might not just be convention, we might be able to provide some virtual type events over zoom this coming year, things like that. So anybody that has any ideas, um, you can raise your hand. Why on your computer, Star nine on your phone? In the app, it's the little button on the bottom right hand corner that says more and that'll give you your hand raised button. option. Why on a Mac? Oh, and Janette, you raised your hand. So can you unmute yourself? I think you can. Can you unmute? Or do you need us to do it? C Walker Let me do it. Okay. maskin harder, unmute. Unknown Speaker There you go. Hi. Oh, there Unknown Speaker we go. Hello, Unknown Speaker pop ups, we're coming up. And then it was losing my focus though. Um, one of the things that I would like to see more of is, um, now that we are in this virtual era. And I have at least heard from my school districts here in California, that school will not be back in the fall, it will be a virtual environment again, which now we're going to be focusing more on actual academics were during the pandemic last year, it was kind of like schools were just sort of putting a bandaid on the migraine. And this year now, as parents are going, Oh, my gosh, we have to catch our kids up from last year. We have to be parents and teachers again this year. And any resources that we can give to our parents to help them to advocate especially with the IEP s at the beginning of the year, virtually and not to let any of that slip. And I think we just all, including myself don't always know, especially in this new environment, how are we going to navigate it? What do we get to expect? Such as, for example, my son's only going into second grade, but if he's going to be at home for the time being or in even longer, I'm going to request a Braille embosser. But I won't know how to make that argument. You know what I mean? I want I think we could just really support our tech and in those endeavors coming up in the next school year. M Riccobono Perfect, duly noted. Unknown Speaker This is Michelle and I fully support that as well. C Walker All right, and just a little bit of editorializing here. Please remember that the cares Act provided a bunch more, it almost doubled special education funding. Unknown Speaker So C Walker it is for exactly this type of thing. So when schools cry poverty, they got it over 30 more than $13 billion from taxpayers for this, so they have a pot to get it from. M Riccobono Very good info. Unknown Speaker That's very, very good to know. Because I know that schools are always saying that things are like this. Unknown Speaker But I think a lot of parents Unknown Speaker will listen to what the schools say. I mean, I won't. But there are a lot of parents that will not stop once the school says no, and they don't necessarily know how to put the schools on notice officially about explaining the reasons why they are not going to provide something. So I just want to empower parents. C Castellano This is Carol Castellano, would you be willing to work with us next year, as we're putting together our committee for workshops, etc, maybe over the course of the year. Or as you think of things, just jot them down. And that will help us provide the resources? Unknown Speaker Certainly, and if there ever is a committee that could participate in that, and helping to do this, I'd be really happy. Great. All right. I M Riccobono mean, you had your hand up. Sorry. Unknown Speaker I do have my hand up. Go ahead, Jean. So Unknown Speaker actually, I'm here with Harley and she's not on her own device. But she has something to to add. Unknown Speaker Go ahead, Harley. Unknown Speaker So hey, Harley. Hi. So Unknown Speaker I would like more sessions about Braille in this in this year's in, in this in next year's convention. M Riccobono More sessions about Braille. Okay, duly noted any particular parts of Braille? Well, Unknown Speaker more of how to make Braille fun because I Unknown Speaker know that Braille rocks because it actually is M Riccobono more about how to make Braille fun. It is fun. That's right. Maybe Harley, you can help us talk about how to make Braille fun. That's a great suggestion. Thank you. Unknown Speaker Thank you. Thank you. Unknown Speaker All right. I M Riccobono know there's others that have hands up. I've been taking notes, Carlton, so Unknown Speaker yeah, Unknown Speaker Eric's Hands up. C Walker Eric got to be. Unknown Speaker No, I was just curious, like, you mentioned committees, but you didn't really. Unknown Speaker I don't think you elaborate on what's available. Unknown Speaker So just wondering as you look at the whole group here. C Walker Okay. Um, great question. Well, we're kind of funny that you asked because we're, we're going to be doing a refresh of a lot of them because some, we're gonna be doing refresh. But we have membership, which I'm sure will be staying fundraising is important, because obviously, would love to have outreach kind of multifaceted workshops like Melissa was talking and Carol were talking about, but also outreach to our NFP family, we do already have some committees about outreach to our other divisions, partnering with other divisions. But I think it's important to reach out to non f NFP fault because we can preach to the choir all we like, but we have to make systems change by reaching out to others. Trying to run through my list of all our online community. Oh my gosh, the website, everything. All that work is it's a lot of work. But it's great work. It's so important to get that information out. And honestly, anything else Unknown Speaker that C Walker is needed? We're not again, just like we're not beholden to titles, we're not beholden to committees, either we can. We we want the committees to work for us, not for us to work for the committee. So any good ideas we would love to expand on. That's a lawyer's way of not answering. C Castellano Carlton, would you let everyone know how can they reach us if they have an idea for a committee or just want to join some committee and would like further information? What's the best way to reach us? C Walker reach me at an op bc PRS At gmail.com Let me put that in the chat. It's in OPC national organization of parents supplying children at p r p r s pres@gmail.com. And some folks have been putting that in the group chat, and that's fabulous. But I cannot copy and paste that darn food group chat, which is really annoying me. So please, please do email me. If that's if you can't remember that you can always just do Carlton walker@gmail.com that comes to me is Carlton Walker. All one word@gmail.com I'd love to share that with I will obviously share that with the board and Unknown Speaker does that. C Walker So I'll be happy to be the clearinghouse Unknown Speaker for that. Unknown Speaker e mail.com. Unknown Speaker I'm sorry, Carlton, would Unknown Speaker you say that again? C Walker Absolutely. In OP BC. P r e s, so nine letters, all right@gmail.com. Unknown Speaker And then yours, C Walker if you don't mind is just Carlton Walker car. ltot NWALK er also@gmail.com. Okay, Unknown Speaker thank Gmail. C Walker You're welcome. chemo puts everything in the same inbox. makes me so happy. Unknown Speaker And if in five minutes, you can't find it, just respond to any of your registration emails. And I'll get it. I'll make sure Carlton gets All right. Unknown Speaker Thank you. M Riccobono Definitely or info at no pvc.org I mean, there's tons of ways to get ahold of us just go to our website. I mean, there's there's millions ways. Okay. C Walker And once not better than the other please. info it into ppc.org is perfect way as well. Unknown Speaker Thank you. Unknown Speaker putting that in. Unknown Speaker Work. All right. C Walker Okay, um, I don't see any hands right now. Oh, yes, I do. Sarah herb Go ahead. Unknown Speaker Sure. I just know if we would be sent out a the survey. We have Unknown Speaker two that were stirred me. C Walker Okay, I'm not. You're very well now. Unknown Speaker One second. Audio Unknown Speaker call tonight. I think she was asking about the after convention survey. C Walker Okay. Yes, um, Penny or somebody else in charge of that. Unknown Speaker will get one. C Walker There will be one. Unknown Speaker Fabulous. C Walker And we have a I'll take this moment to announce a another Echo Dot Unknown Speaker winner. C Walker We have number 14. Linda Coco visto. from Kansas City, Missouri. Unknown Speaker Are C Walker you still here? Linda? She looks like she's here. Going once up. There's Unknown Speaker a hand. Yeah, Unknown Speaker there she is. Unknown Speaker Hey, Unknown Speaker that's an echo dot. C Walker I am here. Yes. Excellent. do stay to the end, my friends because there is one word door prize, and you're gonna wanna just made a run to the kitchen real quick. M Riccobono I'm just going to say to I know, you get inundated with surveys. And I know it's easy to sort of put them off and say, oh, I'll do that survey later. But please, if you have a minute, when when you get the Yes. When you get the survey, please. He's really tried to fill it out. It really does help guide us. I mean, a lot of the workshops that we did this year, were in response to surveys, survey results. So please try to i know i know life gets in the way but I don't really want to beg but I'm kind of begging please try to do it. C Walker Let's just like we talked about how important voting is accessible voting is this is your vote. This is this is your voice. We want to hear your voice. So any other questions? ideas M Riccobono Yeah, Alison raised your hand. C Walker Alison. Yes. Hi. Unknown Speaker Hello. Sorry. I've Unknown Speaker been waiting for my kids to be sunny. Unknown Speaker I have 200 kids. All right, so Unknown Speaker I liked Unknown Speaker Elson, we can hear background noise isn't a problem. But can you get closer to your microphone? Unknown Speaker Yes, Unknown Speaker I can. Is this better? No, it's not better. Okay. Is this better? Yes. Unknown Speaker Perfect. Thank you. Unknown Speaker Okay. The things I liked was I actually liked the Braille Book Fair yesterday. It was different, but I just liked being able to talk to people about Braille. That makes me happy. And I think I'd like to suggest was, this may come as a surprise because I didn't go to the group calls, but I liked the virtual cane walks. Because I like having a okay. Unknown Speaker I liked having a Unknown Speaker one on one connection with somebody in the NFB to give us Unknown Speaker suggestions. Unknown Speaker When I'm on the phone, I liked when one on one person to give us suggestions about cane travel. Okay, okay, Unknown Speaker hold on. I'm coming right here. Unknown Speaker Yeah, there you go. Unknown Speaker Sorry, guys. Okay. I liked that. And I wonder if we could try that with other topics. I know, that's a lot. But I love to be able to have one on one conversations about cane travel. For I had a different mentor for each of my girls. And that was nice. And could we do that like a Braille mentor, also, Braille partnership or assistive tech partnership? It can be a lot of work. But I have to say I even I didn't make the group calls, but I found the individual chats, even over email really helpful. Unknown Speaker That's a suggestion. We'll M Riccobono definitely keep that in mind. C Walker Absolutely. Unknown Speaker Thanks, guys. And thanks for pulling together a nice agenda. You know, virtually. Thank you. Thank you. M Riccobono We appreciate that. It was a it was different this year. Hope jenelle raised her Oh, she lowered around. Unknown Speaker Oh, nope. Sheila. Go ahead, Jeanette. Unknown Speaker So my question was, actually if you guys wouldn't mind, I would love to be connected with whoever Unknown Speaker set up the Unknown Speaker Harry Potter xscape room. I I know I can't get into it to see it myself. But thinking about the conference that we're going to do in our state, I would just absolutely love to see how something like that is done. M Riccobono So we can definitely connect you to that the woman was Emily Gibbs. I believe that she used a Harry Potter escape room that was created by a lie a public library somewhere. So it was something that was actually available on the internet. If I mean, that's fine, like when I found the link. But yes, we can definitely connect you. Unknown Speaker Nice. It's a great idea. So M Riccobono it sounds like all the youth loved it last night. I saw some really nice reactions on social media. With that, so I'm glad to hear that that went so well. Unknown Speaker It was wonderful. C Walker anymore. Should I start calling for Unknown Speaker calling numbers? This is Melissa Shido. I can't figure out how to raise my hand. C Walker Oh, okay. Well, hi, Melissa. I Unknown Speaker go ahead. Um, well, I just, this was the first time I participated in the national stuff. So I really enjoyed it. The only thing I can really think about is stuff to do with younger kids. You know, just like playing and things like that. What can we do? You know, my daughter's three she's using a cane and everything but you know, even in the house like she's losing her sight so even in house like she's running into railings and things and fun ways to make them understand how to put their hands up and things like that. Some stuff like that would be really great. And I enjoyed all the Braille stuff. Your hands perfect. C Walker Awesome. Thank you. Okay, and I'll put your hand down. Then Melissa. She will see how you got it off and it was great. And I'm okay. Unknown Speaker Computer. C Walker Are there any others? Unknown Speaker Oh. Oh, can we get someone on the phone seeking the floor. It C Walker was Melissa. She Unknown Speaker No, it wasn't. C Walker There wasn't one to one seven. Unknown Speaker That's, that's me Kathy ramble. Unknown Speaker I C Walker saw I thought that was Melissa apologize Unknown Speaker and never get to come to your meetings because I'm always have a conflict. But this is a crazy question. But just could could you say what would it save time to when you have the the non executive board seats to 10 seats to mention all the wonderful people who are running for them? And could they all be voted on at once? Or would that not work? Because somebody might want to run that? You don't know about? C Walker That? Yep, we can't do that. Unfortunately. Unknown Speaker I mean, I'm not sure C Walker it's a democratic thing. So I won't say unfortunately, but I hear ya. Unknown Speaker Yeah. But I didn't want it. Yeah. C Walker Yeah, I hear you. But yeah, it works. We do have to Unknown Speaker Hey, if you think our elections long, just go check out the student division. Unknown Speaker Oh, good. Unknown Speaker I didn't do that. Korb. How are you course? I didn't do that. Couldn't do that was involved in other stuff. But anyway, thanks. I loved your meeting. I love the wonderful teachers address that was absolutely outstanding. C Walker She was great. We're lucky. Oh, Unknown Speaker thanks, everybody for our mute again. Okay. C Walker Thank you. Unknown Speaker Thank you. Unknown Speaker I screwed up. Unknown Speaker Alrighty, C Walker um, any more questions before I call up this and the last door prize, my friends is again from Kimberly Bates. Second vice president Kimberly Bates. And this time it's an Amazon. Alexa. Unknown Speaker begun. Unknown Speaker Okay. C Walker All right. I have any other questions? Okay. I have number 59. Amanda knockin Kansas City, Missouri. Are you here Amanda? Unknown Speaker There's an Amanda's iPhone. C Walker Amanda Amanda's iPhones that Amanda knockin. Okay, I'm not seeing her. How about number 10? Tracy Boyd. Tracy's are our new parent person out in Oregon. Unknown Speaker No, C Walker okay. Try again. 63 triva aloevera. Ruston, Louisiana. Are you here? triva C Castellano she wasn't here. Yeah, no, she's Unknown Speaker I'm here. C Walker Yes. Well, you you're you're awesome. You're gonna get a an Amazon Alexa, how Unknown Speaker about that? Unknown Speaker Thank you. C Walker Fabulous. Well, thank you everyone. Please, please don't hesitate to contact us anytime. info at in Oh pbc.org or in a PPC pr s@gmail.com Carlton walker@gmail.com Facebook, Twitter, communications all about communication. So until we can share our huts again and Unknown Speaker share C Walker the in person camaraderie that we yearn for we are we were confident and happy knowing that we can share each other virtually as well. Thank you all. C Castellano Bye Unknown Speaker bye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai