By Shawn Mayo, Executive Director, Blindness: Learning in New Dimensions

Can you believe it? Twenty years have passed since Blindness: Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND) Incorporated first opened its doors offering innovative, consumer-based adjustment-to-blindness training programs to blind Americans, the first of its kind in Minnesota. That means it’s time for a celebration!

This is our first communication to alumni and friends so that you can make necessary arrangements to join with us by first setting aside one day in your busy schedule to come to our BLIND Incorporated Center to help us give proper recognition to this exciting and auspicious occasion. Although our plans are not yet fully set, here’s what we have so far:

Date: Saturday, October 25, 2008;

Time: 10:00 a.m. to midnight;

Plans for the day:

• Welcoming ceremonies over coffee;
• Tours of the Center;
• Where is everyone now?—jobs? Success stories? Hobbies?
• A time to reminisce—Fond memories of days in the program;
• A picnic lunch in the front yard;
• Make a video of attendees for the website;
• New BLIND Incorporated programs developed over the years:
• Establishing an alumni organization;
• Begin plans for our 25th anniversary in 2012/13;
• A catered dinner followed by a dance or other entertainment in the evening;
• We welcome further suggestions.

Current students and staff are eager to hear stories of the past and let you know of today’s life at BLIND Incorporated. What has changed? What remains the same? What challenging activities do students of today experience?

Please share this notice with others. We want to reach everyone who had a part in shaping the history of BLIND, Incorporated since we first launched our program on January 4, 1988 following a year of planning and preparing.