Those of you who have a copy of Hanni And Beth: Safe & Sound on your bookshelf should pat yourself on the back. Not only do you recognize literary genius when you see it, but your purchase is helping create more Braille books for children.
Blue Marlin Publications donates a portion of the proceeds from sales of Safe & Sound to Seedlings Braille Books for Children, a small non-profit organization in Michigan providing high quality, low cost Braille books for children. Safe & Sound hasn’t been out a year yet, and already Blue Marlin Publications has donated TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS to Seedlings.
A little known fact about Braille: fewer than 20% of the 50,000 blind children in the United States are proficient in Braille. All too often, the “written word” has been inaccessible to kids who are blind. They listen to audio books instead, or hear words from a computer screen equipped with a screen reader. Technology is cool, but how will these children ever learn to spell correctly? How will they know where to put commas, quotation marks, paragraph breaks and so on? By producing Braille books for children, Seedlings helps promote “literacy for the blind,” providing visually impaired children equal opportunity to develop a love of reading. Safe & Sound is one of the books available in Braille from Seedlings, which means I’ve been able to read parts of the book aloud at the presentations I’ve been doing since last October.
To find out how to order a copy of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound in Braille, or to donate to Seedlings to help them create more books in Braille for kids, link to www.seedlings.org. Every ten dollar donation makes another Braille book possible.
But wait! There’s more! This week you’ll have yet another way to help Seedlings Braille Books for Children. This Saturday, September 20, 2008 is Macy’s <Shop for a Cause day. Here’s how it works: you purchase a $5 shopping pass from Seedlings ahead of time and use the card to “Shop for a Cause” at any Macy’s nationwide on September 20. Seedlings retains all proceeds from the sale of shopping passes, and you get special discounts — everyone who buys a shopping pass will be entitled to receive 20% off regular, sale and clearance prices in apparel, accessories, jewelry and housewares and 10% off regular, sale and clearance furniture, mattresses & rugs (some exclusions do apply). Remember, though: the shopping pass you get from Seedlings can only be used on Saturday, September 20, 2008.
Seedlings Braille Books for Children is dedicated to providing high quality, low-cost Braille books for blind children. Thanks to you, they’ve placed hundreds of new Braille books into the waiting hands of children who read by touch.
To purchase a Macy’s shopping pass for $5 each, call Julie or Dawn at Seedlings: 734-427-8552 or 800-777-8552. You may also send a check or money order to Seedlings at 14151 Farmington Road, Livonia, MI 48154.
Include your name, address, and phone number, and a Macy’s shopping pass will be mailed directly to you.
Wow! If the publisher donated 2000 bucks, and every 10 bucks makes a Braille book, that means 200 Braille books. Cool! !
Response to your last blog: There has always been times where people were rude even when I didn’t have Jim. The first time I ran into a completely rude person with Jim, I was kind of surprised at how vicious and hurtful their remarks were. I tried explaining and when that didn’t work, I walked away telling myself that I don’t need people like that in my life. Just this past week I was walking back from class and I had passed a group of people who were blocking the door to the central part of the building. Their conversation goes as follows… Pardon a bit of vulgar language.
Person 1: Holy Sh*t, there’s a dog in here.
Person 2: Yeah, that girl’s blind. That dog helps her out.
Person 1: Naw, you serious? She’s not blind.
Person 2: She is blind and that’s why she has the dog.
Person 1: I don’t think she’s blind. I don’t believe it.
Just listening to something like that as I walked away, hurt me so much. What has gotten into these people? Why would they say something like that if they didn’t even know me? Why are they so blatantly obvious about how they speak about other people? It almost seems like they think I’m oblivious and can’t hear them talking about me. I’m sad to say that I don’t feel like this issue is ever going to be better unless the public is educated about people with disabilities and about service dogs. Horrid remarks are bound to happen to anyone… It just needs to stop right now. To be honest, it’s getting old and tiresome. I’m done listening and will move forward. I think that’s the only approach that will keep me sane.
Response to this blog: I was at the Families Connecting With Families conference in Omaha, Nebraska last summer and got to see some of the books that Seedlings offered. My favorite book as a kid, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You see?”, was among the books that were on display. It was really cool to stand by the table and read the book I haven’t touched since Kindergarten. It’s truly remarkable to know that there is so much out there. I appreciate it and I know so many others do too.
Have a good one Beth! Give Hanni pets for me when she’s on her milkbone break… *smile*
Take care,
Sarah & Jim
First, thanks for letting me –and everyone who reads this blog – know how good it feels to have Braille in your hands! Second, I know what you mean about trying to ignore rude comments and moving on. I think it’s the best policy, it’s just that sometimes the comments are hard to forget.
Hello Beth and Sarah!
It’s sad that such a small percentage of children who are blind are fluent Braille readers. Some people might say that the TVIs aren’t doing their job, but I think that the school districts are the ones to blame since these students often have very little time to learn blindness skills (I’m talking about students who are in their home districts.) The TVIs are trying to teach these children as much as possible, but like I said, the district will only allow the teachers certain amounts of time with each student; obviously the TVIs can’t cram large amounts of information into their brains! Also, as you have stated before, it often takes us a bit longer to do/learn certain things. District officials should be more aware of this fact and of how important Braille literacy is for students who are blind and visually impaired. Just imagine if sighted students weren’t being taught how to read print or if they weren’t being taught how to handwrite just because of the availability of computers! What an outcry of parents that would cause!!! Thankfully, Seedlings is concerned about this, and we should definitely support their cause!
Sandra
this was soo cool and tough me stuff i didnt kmow thanx!!!
[…] I found out that three students at Eastview Elementary School were blind, I arranged to have Braille copies of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound sent there before our visit this week. I’d use one myself to show the kids at different grade […]
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