by Jamie Gibson-Barrows
During the month of October, the Fresno chapter celebrated the CCB Canes Across California fund raiser by partnering with Barnes and Nobles and having a book fair fund raiser.
This event took place over a three day weekend. Members volunteered many hours during this event to prepare and help its success. They participated in a white cane awareness walk, managed tables throughout the store and actively participated in story time.
The event focused on "education in the publics eye." Our information tables included brochures about CCB and Etiquette skills training all three days. Story time was a great experience for members, children and their families. Two people read books in braille called Curious George and Safe and Sound at home, a guide dog story. After the readings, we had two additional chapter members writing children's names in braille on a card and handed out braille alphabet cards. Members taught the children and family members the history of braille and the tools used to write it. The children and parents were amazed on how the "dots" make words. We had a second table in the store to demonstrate low and no vision tools like a portable CCTV, the talking book library, RX pill readers, Freedom Scientific's Ruby magnification, the PenFriend 2 voice recorded and labeler, and different voice recorders. Educating about technology was fun and a hands-on experience.
One of our members, Olivia Ostegaard is an author, and she performed a book signing during our event. Her book is "Looking at the Unseen: My Guide Dog Journey." This event was popular and supported by our local puppy raising club "Far sighted Puppies with a Plan." They came out during this event to support our chapter and educate about Guide Dogs for the Blind, GDB. We had puppy raisers with their puppies throughout the store educating about blindness and the benefits of using a guide dogs.
During our three day event, we had the opportunity to reach out to so many people about blindness on social media, web, email and in person. All proceeds from this event are
being donated to the CCB.
