By Jennifer Dunnam

We have completed a momentous occasion in the National Federation of the Blind.  More than 100 Minnesotans went to Orlando for our national convention, joining nearly 3,000 of our colleagues to celebrate 75 years of our national movement.  This organization has effected tremendous accomplishments throughout its history,  and it remains eminently strong and ready to take on the monumental work that still lies ahead to keep low expectations from coming between blind people and our dreams.  Minnesota is one of the seven states that united in 1940 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to begin our national organization.  This year, members from all of our chapters in Minnesota attended the convention, including the two chapters that newly organized or revitalized during our recent "75 days of action" — the At-large chapter and the Riverbend chapter.

On May 18, we held our NFB of Minnesota 2015 semiannual convention.  The attendance at this semiannual was the largest I can remember, and our members and friends gave excellent and interesting presentations.  For the first time this year, we streamed the semiannual convention morning session over the Internet for anyone to hear.  One member reported that she started listening at home but was soon inspired to come join us in person.  The concurrent afternoon meetings for students, seniors, job seekers, and braille enthusiasts were all well attended with solid, interactive, and informative agendas.  Thanks to the students for feeding us lunch, and to the seniors division for the doughnuts in the morning, which I must say were of particularly amazing quality this year — sorry that we were not able to put those on the stream!  Everyone's participation made it a very good day, and accomplished good work — some of it of the kind that doesn't feel much like work at all but accomplishes a great deal all the same. 

Over the past few months we have spent time working with the legislature to inform them about the need for more resources to ensure that seniors who are becoming blind can learn what they need to live independently.  Although there was no increase this year to the appropriation to State Services for the Blind for services to seniors as we advocated, many legislators have a better understanding of this issue because of the presence we maintained, and even more so of the fact that we will not be going away.  Rarely have we won any of our victories on the first round — we win because we keep at it.  Another reason I am glad to be part of NFB is that we know how to bring our collective knowledge and experience to a tightly focused plan.  We are very clear, for example, that it would not be in the best interest of blind people to fragment our services across multiple government agencies.  We also know that it makes no sense to  obtain funding for something needed by taking away funds from something else that is also very much needed.  Because of the time and effort spent at the legislature by a number of Federationists during this session, and the many e-mails and phone calls sent by our members, we have pledges to work with us to try to help move something forward next session.

In other news, finally, after discussing the need to do so for some time, we have embarked on a project to digitize the extensive document archives of our state organization that have been lovingly preserved for almost a hundred years.  The purpose is both to preserve the material and to make it more accessible to us.  We have found an individual with a deep appreciation of historical documents and knowledge of how to preserve them.  He has begun with the records of incorporation as the Minnesota State Organization of the Blind on May 27, 1920, through convention proceedings, meeting minutes, and letters.  Much of the early work was hand written.  Even the typewritten material has handwritten corrections on it.  Apparently, in the early days, some of the material was kept in a small notebook.  Sometime later, the notebook pages were affixed to larger pages and bound in a book.  Some of the pages were attached in such a way that that they overlap, causing several lines on each page to be hidden.  The person we have working on the digitization, in consultation with archivists and the Minnesota Historical Society, was able to use a bone letter opener that he happened to have handy (doesn't everyone have one of those), to lift carefully enough of the pages to expose the rest of the writing so that it can be added into the digital images.  The story of our organization starts with people's desperate wish to find a way to live on their own, independently.  The solutions devised by the people nearly 100 years ago are not like the solutions we would seek today, because the context was very different as were the resources at hand.  However, the strong belief that we who are blind are the best ones to determine our destiny is very much the same.  The story has been told in these pages in the past and will no doubt be examined here again as we approach the centennial of our state organization.

Remember that membership in the NFB of Minnesota is on an annual basis, beginning June 1.  If you have not had a chance to renew your membership, you are welcome to send in your $5 dues along with your current contact information to our address on the cover of this Bulletin. 

We remain active in the effort to ensure that blind people, like everyone else, have the opportunity to cast our ballots independently and privately.  The details of current developments are discussed in this issue of the Bulletin. 

Regulations were recently proposed for implementation of the newly enacted Workforce Investment Opportunity Act, a reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act that governs rehabilitation programs for blind people, among other things.  The public comment period ran from April to mid June, and we were active in helping to formulate comments to improve the regulations.  While in general the regulations reflected a much more positive view of the capacity of blind people than some previous regulations and a clearer view of how rehabilitation programs should work for best effect, there are some provisions of concern in the proposed regulations.  For example, some changes would make it more difficult for a newly blinded person, who often has no idea of his or her potential to work at a wide variety of jobs as a blind person, to get started with rehabilitation to gain the needed skills and understandings.  On the positive side, the requirements for people in the rehab process to be informed about advocacy organizations such as the National Federation of the Blind are strengthened.  Also, the regulations would prohibit schools from contracting with agencies holding wage exemption certificates (i.e., employers that pay subminimum wages to their workers with disabilities), to reduce students' exposure to those kinds of jobs.  The proposed regulations are lengthy and address numerous issues.  I expect our comments will bring about improvements. 

We will hold the NFB of Minnesota's 34th annual Walk for Opportunity on September 12 this year in Rochester.  The day is a lot of fun, and it helps us to be able to do what we need to do by bringing in funds to this organization.  We hope each of you will come join us on September 12 and encourage your friends and colleagues to contribute.  If you cannot be with us, you can certainly still contribute and/or encourage your family and friends to do the same.

The annual convention of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota will take place October 9-11 in Bloomington.  Visit www.nfbmn.org for information on how to make hotel reservations by September 11.  Pre-registration and other details will be available shortly.

We just finished our very first NFB BELL (Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning) program!  The purpose of the program is to provide intensive instruction for children who need more instruction in braille than they are able to get during the school year.  The curriculum for this two-week program was very solid, and the team of enthusiastic and hard-working adults brought it to life to make an unforgettable and helpful experience for the children involved.  A special thanks to Carlton and Anna Walker from Pennsylvania who took two weeks out of their lives to come and work in the program.  Here is a braille note from one of the participants, who lives in Northern Minnesota:

“Dear NFB of Minnesota,

Thank you for sponsoring our NFB BELL program.  I learned new braille, and I liked that people read us stories.  I also like using my new cane!

Thank you again,

Riley”

Riley is six years old.  He is bright, curious, happy, confident, and is learning to read in braille.  We must do all that we can to make sure that he is able to grow up in a world that lets him stay that way.  He may encounter low expectations from some as he goes along his path, but we will be there to counter them so that our society will benefit from the wonderful, contributing person that he will be. 

It can take a long time to change the things that need changing, but they do change when people persist.  This organization will keep on persisting.