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by Gary Wunder Note: This article appeared in the Braille Monitor January 2011, and was originally from a speech given by Gary Wunder on October 30, 2010, at the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado Convention.

By Valerie Yingling Can both federal employees and members of the public with disabilities avail themselves of the full panoply of rights and remedies provided, either explicitly or implicitly, by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794d, including the right to file a civil action for injunctive relief?1 

by Schulzman Walter Shannon McCann (aka Schulz) My name is Schulzman Walter Shannon McCann, but most people call me Schulz or “Good Boy.” I’m a seven-year-old black lab and for about five years, I was a Seeing Eye dog. So many people think that just because guide dog handlers are blind, we, the dogs, do all of the work. That’s inaccurate. I was an equal partner with my mom. (She named herself that; not all handlers do.) She knew where to go and how to navigate things such as traffic. I got us where we needed to be, safely. It took both of us working in tandem to be a successful team. We trained at the Seeing Eye which is a guide-dog-training school. There are many schools around the world. There are also programs designed by handlers who train their own dogs.

by Liz Wisecarver Finally, we were back together again for the National Convention of the National Federation of the Blind in New Orleans. There were over 2,500 participants in-person and over 1,000 joining in virtually! Many of us, myself included, dusted off our cane-travel skills and had to remember how to prepare for a week packed with exhilarating presentations, social outings, and opportunities to network with blind people from across the country. Thankfully, it was not too difficult to get back in the swing of things and enjoy everything national convention had to offer.

By Gary Wunder When I came to the Federation, the Braille Monitor was the way folks across the nation talked. There was no live presidential release, no Voice of the Nation’s Blind, no Imagineering Our Future.

By Todd Elzey

by Rachel Kuntz

By Danielle McCann

by Marilyn Green

by Patti Chang and Denise Avant