51¶¯Âþ

I have a condition called retinitis pigmentosa. As I got into third and fourth grade, my vision deteriorated and being able to read with my eyes was more challenging. While I was being taught braille, I kind of pushed it away. I wanted to use my eyes as much as possible. Today I work at National Braille Press, where I lead our fundraising department and do some PR and communications. NBP mission is to foster a joy of reading among blind children and encourage parents to advocate for braille literacy in the schools. A lot of the school systems will say it cheaper and easier to get this blind child a digital recording of a book versus getting it in braille. Listening to a book is great, but it not the same as reading. You lose out on understanding sentence structure and how to use punctuation.

I kind of stumbled into fundraising. My roommate ran the Boston Marathon when we were juniors at 51¶¯Âþ and he had to raise fifteen hundred dollars, so I helped him. I was also running a lot, and I competed in the marathon in the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta.

I™ve always wanted to compete in whatever I did. Not being able to see well enough to catch a ball or throw a ball, my options for physically competing were really limited. But I could run longer and further than the kids that were really good at sports that I couldn™t do. And so that gave me some self-confidence about being able to be athletic. But I got injured after Atlanta and didn™t make the next Paralympic team. So Joe Collins ™63, SSW ™65, who was the CEO of the Massachusetts Association for the Blind, helped me get a job in the association development office.

We face a lot of discrimination as people with disabilities. You get a lot of doors slammed on you. You don™t get opportunities because people think you™re less capable. All that anyone with a disability ever wants is the same opportunity to succeed or fail as everyone else. ◽