This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
PAM ALLEN: Good evening, fellow Federationists!
(Cheering)
PAM ALLEN: And welcome to our March Presidential Release Live, where we are broadcasting live from Baltimore.
(Cheering)
PAM ALLEN: Thank you so much. It is wonderful for all of us to be together tonight in person and virtually, and I want to now introduce our president, Mark Riccobono.
MARK RICCOBONO: All right, thank you, Pam!
(Cheering)
It's been so long since we've had a live event.
PAM ALLEN: It's been a while.
MARK RICCOBONO: And since we've been in the same place.
PAM ALLEN: Exactly!
MARK RICCOBONO: We missed you at the gathering in. So we're glad you're in Baltimore now.
PAM: Very happy to be here.
MARK RICCOBONO: We have a lot to cover this evening. We might go a little long this evening, because we want to get to some questions, right?
PAM: We've got some great questions, so be ready.
MARK RICCOBONO: Should we jump in?
PAM: Let's do it.
MARK RICCOBONO: Greetings, fellow Federationists. Today is Thursday March 5th, 2026 And, and this is Presidential Release Live number 53. We are here live at the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute along with the 98th Leadership Seminar of the Federation.
(Cheering)
And March is here, we're excited, getting ready for March Madness, baseball season is only three weeks from today. And many Federation spring conventions. We've had a couple already. So that means spring is here.
And, man, there is a lot of advocacy work happening, and being an advocacy civil rights organization, we're right in the middle of it. So I am going to dive in. We have a lot to talk about this evening, and we're going to be bringing some folks into this conversation in addition to Pam and I.
So let me just start by acknowledging that last week we put out a statement expressing our sadness as an organization about learning of the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, who was a blind refugee in Buffalo, who passed away after being released from being detained by authorities.
And we have been following this story closely.
We put out a statement last week that you can find on our website.
And it's particularly disturbing because it appears as though his blindness was not compensated for by the agencies that detained him for some time, and was not taken into consideration when they released him from custody. This is just one of the many things that are happening currently in our nation.
And I'm not going to go too deeply into that this evening, but I do want to acknowledge and raise up that it is very much top of mind for our Federation community, and especially those members of our Federation family that are particularly negatively affected by the actions that are happening now, especially around immigration enforcement, and many of our members who are, in fact, legal citizens, but because of their other characteristics are, in fact, very uncomfortable, being out in their local communities, going to their local chapter meetings.
And so this is really important time for us as a community to make sure that we're reaching out to those members of our chapters to make sure that they're heard that we can support them, and make sure that they know that they continue to have a community.
You can hear some more discussion about this on our podcast, both the Nation's Blind podcast and the Access On Podcast, and I do encourage our chapters to share our commitment to be a welcoming, loving organization, especially for those who may be feeling the negative effects of what's happening in the nation around us today.
Now, I have a number of advocacy announcements to cover, and some really important calls to action for the NFB community. I will be talking about our national convention. So that's my little preview. I will getting to that shortly.
Getting some feedback on my mic here. So I will be getting to that shortly, but I do have a number of advocacy items that I need to raise up to you, because there are some important actions We need Federation members to take.
And the first has to do with the United States Department of Education. The Department of Education is required by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act to investigate all complaints of discrimination that are within its jurisdiction.
And since the Department over the last year has significantly reduced its workforce through a number of series of riffs, we have noticed that many of the Office of Civil Rights complaints are being dismissed.
And the statistics say that the Office of Civil Rights has dismissed something like 90% of all complaints that have come in. 90% have been dismissed.
As far as we can tell, the only rationale behind this is that there's no staff to deal with the complaints. So what are we going to do about it as an organization? We've taken a look at what some of our options are, and you know that we are already pursuing the Social Security Administration in legal action for the negative impact that the reduction in staff has had there on things that Social Security, in this case, we need to gather data from members of the federation who have had Office of Civil Rights complaints dismissed, especially during the last six months.
We also, of course, encourage anyone to file a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights, if you are facing discrimination in the areas that the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights would cover, and we definitely ask you to share any complaints that you file with our national office, so we can help track new complaints going forward.
But right now, we really want to hear from the Federation community about complaints that have been filed in the last six months or so, that have been dismissed by the department of Education. This will give us some important data that we can use to decide on some next steps.
So I would ask that you please share information about the dismissal of Office of Civil Rights Complaints with San Jose in our legal coordination. You can email or reach him at the main number, 410-659-9314, extension 2440.
If you do send an email, please attach any relevant documentation so that we can include that in our files. It makes it easier also for us to follow up with you. And, again, if you need guidance or filing a complaint, you can reach out to Sano as well, he can guide you through that process. So let's gather some data and see if we can maybe find some ways to effect what is happening at the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights.
We still don't have good information about what the future of the programs is at the Department of Education, so this is really important that we follow up on this.
Now another important area of advocacy to make you aware of, And this is literally emerging in the last couple of weeks.
And I'm letting you; the Federation community know about this as individual members. There's nothing in particular that we're asking you to do, but we will be following up with our affiliates and national divisions.
So as a reminder, the Department of Justice Title II regulations for Web and Mobile Accessibility for government websites, apps and social media is scheduled to take effect on April 24th, 2026, with an extended compliance date of April 26th, 2027, for smaller entities.
This rule follows years of extensive public comments and rulemaking process, and that came about after literally more than a decade of advocacy work by the National Federation of the Blind, urging that a rule be put into effect. The public input was broad. It was extensive. It included comments from wide variety of stakeholders, including many comments from the organized blind movement.
So that's the background.
Despite this extensive background, the Department of Justice has announced that just weeks ago, that it is implementing plans to revise the rule for cost reasons.
Now, while they said they want to revise the rule for cost reasons, they haven't given disclosure about what the changes might be, and they have not put in place any public comment period. So we're quite concerned about this, for obvious reasons.
Instead, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OIRA, as it's known, is offering limited listening sessions to take feedback on these mysterious changes.
These revisions, just to be clear, these revisions could weaken or even -- eliminate! -- requirements that school websites and content are fully accessible to blind students, which would be a significant setback for these students.
And any rollback of the rule in any shape or form would harm access for all blind people. And, of course, using an interim final rule process In this context is completely unacceptable to the National Federation of the Blind. There is no emergency reason. There's been no information that would justify bypassing the normal process.
There's been no transparency in what the rationale is for this, and without any public review, we can only understand this as an attack on our civil rights.
And so we are taking immediate steps to mobilize people and create a public record where we can about our objections to this work.
First of all, this rule is really significant, and we, as noted, have spent more than a decade of advocacy work getting to this place.
And so we cannot simply allow this to happen.
So our advocacy strategy, we have two elements.
And the first will come into effect before the rule takes effect.
And so that's the phase we're in now.
And so what we're doing SVG... since OIRA is only accepting requests for meetings through their EO12866 meeting request process, we have already requested a meeting on behalf of the national Federation of the Blind, and, in fact, we have been granted that opportunity. We have also posted a letter about our concerns to the Federation's website today. You can read that letter. It went out just today to the public officials expressing in writing our concerns about the changes, and that will give you full context for this issue.
So our immediate priority is to have a meeting.
Now, we also will be trying to maximize engagement by asking affiliates and divisions to similarly request meetings, and our national advocacy staff will be following up starting tomorrow with affiliates and divisions on this, so that we can coach you on these details, how to get a meeting, and what to do. While the content of the meetings will not be recorded or publicized in any way, the fact that there was a meeting will become part of the public record and could be very critical to us in any future challenges to any changes that are made to this rule.
So this is a really critical inflection point for us, and I'm putting all Federation members on notice, and definitely asking our affiliates and divisions to swing into action as soon as possible, because obviously, we're only a month away from when this letter... when this rule is supposed to take effect. We will be sharing more details as we go forward. And, obviously, if there is some effect on the rule itself, and once the rule goes into effect, we will be communicating more, and we will have additional advocacy strategies. So again, visit our NFB.org /advocacy. Go to our policy statements page and find that letter.
Now, we do have some positive news. It's always good to have positive news, right?
And we do have some positive news regarding our advocacy work.
So it's not that we're not making progress. The positive news is that the websites and software applications Accessibility Act was introduced in the United States Senate just two days ago!
(Cheering)
This bill number is S3974, and I was introduced by Senator Tammy Duckworth from Illinois, and we're really happy that this has happened. It's been in the works for quite some time.
And we're glad that we can shake it free. S3974 has two originating cosponsors, both of the senators from the great state of Massachusetts.
So congratulations, Massachusetts, for coming out 100% on this bill. That shows great advocacy work. Let's see if we can get some other affiliates to show up at 100% on this bill.
The Senate bill is, of course, the companion bill to H.R. 3417, which was introduced by Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, and Steny Hoyer of Maryland.
So although we have... are still coming out of Washington Seminar, we're still working on a lot of issues. This issue, it's an important opportunity with the Senate bill coming out for you to reach out to your members of Congress, update them on the senate bill being available, and get some momentum to get co-sponsors on both the house and the Senate side. The next month is really going to be critical in moving co-sponsors, if we're going to have a chance of getting this bill through Congress during this congressional session.
So that's great news for us.
There are other advocacy areas we're working on, and one of them relates to the Attorneys General that have been working to undermine Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The states attorneys have renewed their attack on Section 504, and I know many of our affiliates have recently participated in updates and training about that.
Our organization has been taking action. We have created a coalition of nine of our affiliates to push back on the most recent attack on February 12th. Nine of our affiliates came together to send a letter on behalf of these Federation affiliates, and they're Texas, Alaska, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, and South Dakota.
This letter was... this joint letter was sent to each of the state’s attorneys general, to say quite strongly that the Federation and the Blind People's Movement objects to the attacks on Section 504.
Now, last spring, when this lawsuit was really a going concern, we were very effective at getting some of the states to say, no, not disability, our concern is not disability.
But they never removed their concerns from their federal filing. And this current attack makes it clear that disability is, actually, a target in their lawsuit. You can read our letter, the joint letter from our affiliates, again, on our policy statements page, and, NFB.org /advocacy.
You can also find on that page a letter that we sent in the last month to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. We're urging that the committee take up autonomous vehicle legislation in its reauthorization work. You can read that letter there. I won't spend too much more time on it.
And, again, any of our letters that we send to Congress or significant advocacy statements, you can always find them on our website. They're available for you to send and share, NFB.org /advocacy.
Okay, that gives you a little... we need like a little fit break here after all... a lot of advocacy work.
And speaking of fit breaks, I'm going to talk about a fit break, because in 2026, we are making great plans to continue to grow our National Federation of the Blind Coast to Coast Movement Challenge efforts.
Hopefully many of you out there participated last year in our Coast to Coast efforts. I know I signed up to walk the Bay Bridge.
Unfortunately, the actual Bay Bridge got closed, but we had a great walk to Fort McHenry in South Baltimore, and I know that a number of chapters did exciting events in their local communities. This is a really great opportunity for us to engage our chapters and getting out into the community get out and moving and building support for the work of the National Federation of the Blind.
And that's our goal with coast to Coast, to get out in the community, get our members moving to support the movement, but also encouraging people to give financial support to the important work we do.
And the advocacy list I just gave you is pretty good, right? We got work to do.
And we need resources to make that happen. So each and every one of you are being invited, starting this evening, to an informal -- excuse me -- an informational session on the evening of April 20th, 2026, to learn more about how you and your chapter can get involved in our coast to Coast efforts for 2026. We put some new things in place. We're going to be working to get every single chapter participating in a Coast to Coast Movement Event and helping to raise money for our organized blind movement.
So please mark your calendars for April 20th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time for that event, and you can get the Zoom information by reaching out to Rachel Held in our outreach department. Rachel can be reached at extension 2423 here at our national office, or rheld@NFB.org, if you want to get the Zoom information for the call on the 20th. I'm sure we will share it with chapter and affiliate presidents in other ways.
But I do want to share just a couple of exciting notes. You know, last year in addition to having chapter movement events, we had opportunities to participate of course in the Bay Bridge Walks/Run either virtually or in person, and we also had a contingent participating in the California International Marathon. I'm really excited to say that the National Federation of the Blind has been invited to participate as a charity partner this year at the Philadelphia Marathon.
(Cheering)
Yeah!
And Philadelphia just doesn't have a marathon. They have a Philadelphia Marathon Weekend. It's like an extravaganza.
That's going to be on November 22nd, and between the marathon, half marathon, there is an 8K race, we will have about 50 runners participating in this event representing the National Federation of the Blind. So that's putting you on notice, Pam, just in case you want to in case you want to be one of them.
But many others welcome... we would love to have a great showing in Philadelphia of blind runners and allies, also part of or our blind movement. We will, of course, be hoping to return again as a charity partner at the California International Marathon. And once again, our national organization of parents of Blind Children is supporting getting both in person and virtual participation in the Bay Bridge Run here in Maryland. I'm planning to sign up, because I haven't been on the Bay Bridge yet.
So there's going to be many ways... if you're not looking to run a marathon, that's okay, because you can still participate and be active in this work. And, again, another part of the work is to raise money for the National Federation of the Blind. I would really love to celebrate our top chapters who are part of our movement challenge in 2026 at our national convention coming up.
Now, before I get to the National Convention, though, Jonathan Mohsen, who's our executive Director of Accessibility Excellence handed me this announcement right before I came up here.
And it says, very important, access on announcement. We are proud to announce that New Zealand is in the World Cup for cricket.
(Cheering)
I don't know why that was so important, but...
(Laughter)
Except that I'm told that New Zealand is the underdog, and I always root for the underdog. So I'm hoping that Jonathan is going to teach me about cricket this weekend. Apparently it's the big game is on the 8th, right, Jonathan?
>> Yes.
MARK RICCOBONO: There you go, very important announcement.
Now I would like to, Pam, invite you in, but also invite our virtual stage here our good friend, treasurer of the National Federation of the Blind, Norma Crosby to join us.
And to introduce Norma, here is a little video we did recently when I visited Austin, Texas.
>> Greetings fellow Federationists this is Mark Riccobono president of the National Federation of the Blind, here in Austin, Texas, where they like to keep Austin weird. We're here to promote the 2026 convention of the National Federation of the Blind hosted by our Texas affiliate. We have our affiliate president here, Norma Crosby. Norma...
NORMA: So join us July 3rd through the 8th and help keep the NFB Austin weird.
MARK RICCOBONO: And you can register at nfb.org /convention. Come visit us and be part of the convention this summer and keep NFB weird.
NORMA: Y'all come!
MARK RICCOBONO: All right, welcome, Norma.
NORMA: Hi, how are you?
MARK RICCOBONO: We're doing great. We wish you were here.
NORMA: I wish I were here too.
(Laughter)
NORMA: Or there. I am here.
(Laughter)
MARK RICCOBONO: Well, we had a good time in Austin. I guess it's... well, maybe exactly a month ago, we had a little reception there, And getting the community ready to receive our convention, a lot of excitement there.
And it's I think it's going to be a great convention, what do you think, Norma?
NORMA: I absolutely agree 100%.
MARK RICCOBONO: So the registration is open now. And, of course, NFB.org /convention is a good bet, that's where all the convention stuff is, but NFB.org /registration... anybody register yet for the convention?
>> Hotel and flight.
MARK RICCOBONO: No one registered yet. We've got hotels out there. We will have a hotel, beautiful hotel, The J.W. Marriott in Austin, Texas. Got a chance to visit the hotel while I was there, and I think it's going to be a really exciting location for us. I should mention all of the information is on our convention page, but our convention rate will be 139 dollars a night. And for this J.W. Marriott, that is a steal in downtown Austin.
What can you tell us about Austin, Norma?
NORMA: Austin is a fantastic city. It's got lots of outdoor activities. There are great restaurants, great barbecue, great Tex Mex, plenty of beer, for those who like that. I'm sure no one at the NFB convention would drink any beer, but just in case.
And there are lots of places downtown to find food and drink, and opportunities for a good time. Those who visited Austin probably know about 6th Street. Sixth Street is our entertainment district in Austin, where you can find music of every stripe, and comedy, and a great time.
MARK RICCOBONO: Now, Austin they say is the Music Capital of the World.
NORMA: Live music capital.
MARK RICCOBONO: Live music capital. Some really great entertainment there. And, of course, our convention is a steal also. At least if you register before convention, it's only 25 dollars. The banquet will be 85 dollars this year. Of course, the hotel sets the price, so...
But the banquet is going to be a great time.
And we're going to talk about the banquet here in a minute.
But in our video, we did, you know, pay homage to the fact that Austin has marketed itself in a very targeted way to say that Austin is authentic to itself.
And that's what the "Keep Austin Weird" theme is about.
The guys in Portland, Oregon, say Austin stole it, but I don't know about that.
NORMA: I don't think so.
MARK RICCOBONO: But Austin has used this now a couple decades to really emphasize local community and being authentic to who they are and inviting the world to come experience what is the culture of Austin, and who are the people of Austin, and to be proud of who they are, even though some people might view Austin differently, like if you come from Maryland or something. And this is much like the National Federation of the Blind. Right? Because we've said it's respectable to be blind, and there are a lot of people who think that we're crazy for feeling proud of being blind, because that's not something that a lot of people can identify with.
But as blind people, and as we've come together in a community, we have found that it is respectable.
And we do have a lot of pride in being who we are as blind people. And although some people think of blind people as weird, we don't. We think our experience is normal.
And so we thought that our theme for 2026 should be "Keep NFB Weird."
Now, we want to lean into this, fright? We're using "weird" as a placeholder for the things that make this movement full of joy and important to each of us individually.
And so we want "Keep NFB Weird" to be an opportunity for our members and our chapters to express what those things are. What are you proud of?
What is it about this movement that helps to give you joy, and that you want more of?
Could be beer, I don't know...
(Laughter)
But we won't go there this evening.
But just as an example, I'm a member here in Maryland, and I'm quite proud to be a member where we have our national headquarters.
And so I might say something like, I'm Mark Riccobono, and I'm working to keep NFB proud. As a member of the Greater Baltimore Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland, we meet at our national headquarters, a building that is the pride of all blind members across the country.
And we are proud to have a headquarters that exemplifies the high expectations, commitment, and diversity of blind people all across our country.
Now, that's just one statement I could make, and I'm really interested in having members across the country make their own statements about how we can stay authentically NFB, authentically blind centered, and share the pride that you have for the organized blind movement. Pam, or Norma, did you want to share anything in that regard?
NORMA: Sure. You know, our affiliate is the host for this year's convention, so my statement deals actually with our pride in our convention.
And it says... I'm Norma Crosby, and as our national treasurer and president of our Texas affiliate, I'm working to keep NFB strong. It is often said that everything in Texas is bigger, and in the '26 convention of the national Federation of the Blind, we'll will absolutely prove it. We promise to shower you with lots of love, and to raise your expectations, no matter where you are in your blindness journey. NFB 2026 will be the biggest, boldest and best national convention ever.
Join us in Austin and help us change what it means to be blind for you and for our entire community. Together, you and I will keep NFB strong.
MARK RICCOBONO: Very nice. Very nice.
(Applause)
That's pretty good for off the cuff, Norma.
NORMA: Never said that before.
MARK RICCOBONO: Got anything to add, Pam?
PAM: Well, I knew I should have volunteered to go first.
Ironically, mine was also strong, but I'll go with another one. See, Norma and I are just in sync that way.
NORMA: We are.
PAM: So I would say something like, "My name is Pam Allen, and I'm a member of the North Central Chapter of the National federation of the Blind of Louisiana, and I work every day to keep NFB authentic. We speak for ourselves. We welcome new members. We meet people where they are and help them raise their expectations.
We change lives every day.
(Applause)
MARK RICCOBONO: All right, thank you.
So this is the idea, and we would love for chapters to make this a conversation, and capture video, and audio people making these statements, and we'd like to share them on social media and with our communications group here at our national office, as we ramp up toward our convention.
Now, before I... I guess see if Pam and Norma want to share anything about the convention. I did want to say that we continue to look closely at our convention and, you know, we always review how every convention goes, and we're always looking for what we can do to make it more effective.
And there is a lot of changes that happen that are kind of small changes. You probably don't notice them but they're subtle.
Some of them sometimes are big.
And so I wanted to let you know about a big one coming this year. This year, at our convention on July 8th, we are not going to have an afternoon general session before the banquet.
I know, it's weird!
(Laughter)
It's weird, right?
But it's going to be awesome. We're going to have breakout sessions and I mean, there'll be plenty to do at the convention, don't get me wrong.
But we've been taking a look at the trends and things we want to do and we know that the banquet is something people are very eager to get classed up for, and remember we have the speech about, you know, clearing the ballroom... I don't know... I'm hoping John Berggren will still give it, but you can tell people to take their time, take 3 or 4 hours to get up.
But you have some breakout sessions to look forward to in the afternoon of July 8th. I do anticipate we will have our awards in the morning and maybe some other surprises.
So this is one big change to the convention that I wanted to let you know about.
We do want you to stay around, though, for the banquet, of course. Because the banquet always brings surprises and interesting things.
So notice a pretty big change, especially for some of us. This will be my 31st consecutive convention.
So it'll be a big change.
But Pam, or Norma, did you want to share any kind of convention reflections or things before we think about moving on to another topic?
PAM: Well, I will just say, I know that convention is a big commitment, time and resources, financially, but I just really encourage people to attend. I know for so many of us our national convention attendance really was pivotal, in our growth personally, and our connections, the relationships that we built.
And so remember all those first timers to make sure to be applying for Kenneth Jernigan convention scholarships,
And I know that our chapters and our affiliates are working so hard to think creatively and help people get to national convention. So if you're blind person, a parent of a blind child, a professional in the field of blindness, just anybody, we are all welcome, and we just can't wait.
The countdown is on for convention.
MARK RICCOBONO: Thanks, Pam. How about you, Norma?
NORMA: Yeah, can you hear me?
MARK RICCOBONO: Yes, definitely.
NORMA: So I attended my first convention in 1982, and I have not missed a convention since.
And that speaks, I think, to the power of the National Federation of the Blind and the life changing that happens at national conventions, whether the change happens in a meeting or outside a meeting, it's just as powerful. I have learned so much from Federation members, just standing and talking to people in the hallway. So don't discount those opportunities and those things that happen just organically, if you will, in line at the restaurant.
Make new friends. Take a chance. Please don't go to convention and sit in your room. If you're feeling overwhelmed, get a friend to join you still and take some time away,
But keep learning. It's a fantastic experience, and one that will change your life.
And the other thing I would quickly say is don't be afraid to afraid to approach our leadership. One of the things that was most pivotal for me was the fact that our leadership would just talk to its members, and that's unusual in some organizations, but it's the norm in our organization. It's because we're a family.
And so, please, if you see any of us around come up and talk to us.
Introduce yourselves. If we don't know you, we'll be glad to get to know you.
MARK RICCOBONO: Great sentiment. And, Norma, do you want to tell them about the elevators at the J.W.?
NORMA: Yeah, I do.
>> Are they weird?
NORMA: The elevators at the J.W. Marriott are absolutely dumb.
(Laughter)
But they just work.
MARK RICCOBONO: Yeah, they work, yeah.
So really looking forward to it. Thank you, Norma, for joining us. You're, of course, welcome to stay because there might be some questions that you should answer.
But really excited, and want to thank our Texas affiliate for taking on hosting the convention.
It is going to be exciting,
And it was great to get a preview a couple of weeks ago. So thank you, Norma.
NORMA: And I'm so happy that our Austin chapter president is there in the room.
MARK RICCOBONO: Yes, yes, that's right.
(Applause)
All right. I'm going to quickly give some Federation family notes and then throw it back to Pam for some Q&A. I would like to say that it's been a busy year, so we haven't gotten Federation family notes on the recorded release. So I have a number of items here. So if they seem dated in any way, that's why.
And I regret to have to share some of these notes with you.
I do want to encourage you to keep all of these people and their friends and family and Federation family in your thoughts and prayers. From Iowa, Cindy Lou Ray reports the passing of Bob Ray on Tuesday evening, January 6th after a major struggle with cancer.
Cindy shares that Bob joined the Federation in 1965.
And he was active right until the end, although he no longer served in leadership capacities, he was always supporting, especially the legislative work in Iowa, and giving guidance and advice to people coming up and handling all of the things he could. He was very active in the chapter there in Des Moines, and made a great difference for those many years.
From New Jersey, our affiliate president shares that the national Federation of the Blind of new Jersey wishes to share that Linda... let's see if I can get the name right. Linda DeBerardinis of Cinnaminson, New Jersey... that's not easy to say... passed away on January 11th.
Linda was an active leader in the affiliate for a long time and served in many capacities and will be missed.
From Georgia, our affiliate wants to let the Federation family know that Patricia Stroud, a long time and dedicated member of our NFB of Georgia Decatur Area chapter, as well as the Senior Division, passed away on Monday December 29th.
From Virginia, Tracy Soforenko reports that on December 26th of 2025, Carl Knoettner passed away, he says he was an extremely active non blind member of the Potomac chapter and the Virginia affiliate and contributed for in many different ways, as well as being a fun, smart, and curious participant in all Federation activities, and he will be deeply missed by the local members there.
In Pennsylvania, Stacy, who is our chapter president in Philadelphia -- might be running in a marathon, who knows -- reports two individuals who passed away.
Dexter Cooper, who was a member since 2018, who passed away on November 20th, 2025, and Barbara Mitchell was also a member since 2018, who passed away on January 24th of 2026.
From Missouri, Sheila Wright reports that on February 15th, Lewis and Clark chapter member Charlotte Bellmyer passed away.
She notes that many of us may not know Charlotte's name and who she was, but she had been an NFB member for about 40 years.
She was president of the Oklahoma affiliate at one time, and she moved to St. Louis in the 1990s and quickly got active in our chapter there and made many significant contributions to the organized blind movement, and she often told people how significant finding the federation was, and teaching her that she could live a full life despite her blindness.
Now, I encourage you to keep these individuals and others I may not know about in your thoughts and prayers, but we do have, before we get the questions and answers, some joyful notes, is nice.
Kristopher Crawley reports that his wife Zunaira, who was a former national scholarship winner, and he welcomed their -- 6th! -- child on December 23rd.
Imran Siddique Crawley weighed 7 pounds and 1 ounce. He measured 19.75 inches, and Kristopher goes on to say, without the grace of Allah and the philosophy of the Federation, I would not have ever made it to this point, both in my personal and professional life. I am grateful for what the Federation has done for me and my family.
Jamie Richey reports from Nebraska that... she says, I'm excited to announce the newest member of the National Federation of the Blind of Nebraska. Taran Immanuel Marsh was born on Thursday, January 8th, 2026, at 8:52 p.m. weighing 6 pounds 7 ounces.
And Taran is the second son of David and Rachna Marsh from the Omaha chapter.
So I would like to welcome both of these newest members to the National Federation of the Blind. Pam, back to you.
PAM: All right, thank you so much. Riccobono. And thank you to everyone who has submitted questions. You can send your questions through the Q&A feature or email them to communications@NFB.org.
And if we don't have a chance to get to your question tonight, our dynamic communications team will be following up. So we have a couple convention related questions, so ties in nicely to our kick off here.
And I thought this was really interesting, how these two questions kind of go together, President Riccobono, so I'm going to read them.
But they are related.
So Brandon Patterson says, "If I were to come to the NFB convention, and I need help, is there a chance that I'll get help?"
And then one of our leadership seminar participants, Casey Reyes from Utah asked the question... "Since I've been to a few NFB conventions, how can I help welcome first timers?
MARK RICCOBONO: Great. We've got a mentoring pair here already.
PAM ALLEN: Exactly.
MARK RICCOBONO: So what I would say... what is the first name?
PAM ALLEN: Brandon.
MARK RICCOBONO: To Brandon, the answer is yes. And two things... one thing is I would definitely encourage you to reach out to your affiliate in advance to get to know some of the people who might be at convention, and they can also potentially connect you with people from other affiliates. It's good to have a buddy, you know, or 3 or 10, coming into any situation.
But as Norma indicated, you know, there are lots of people in and around the convention who are ready to help.
And who once had a first convention, who have had overwhelming moments in a convention, and have had to lean on somebody else.
So you can definitely rely on that, and know that my experience is at a federation convention, you know, you the can walk up to any group, conversation, and introduce yourself, and say, hey, I'm trying to figure some things out. Is there someone that can give me some advice or help me out? You're going to find a helping hand. Not someone who is going to do it for you, but walk you through it and teach you how to do it, share what they know.
And you never know, you might meet someone that is going to be your lifelong friend 30 years later.
I often tell the story that when I came to my first NFB convention, I couldn't read print, couldn't see it, I didn't know Braille. So I had no idea where to go. I needed to find a reader to read me the agenda. I found the fastest Braille reader I could, so Brook Sexton became my first reader.
There are hundreds of ways to help out at the convention. You don't have to be wait to be asked. A good one though is our Ambassadors Committee, where you can jump in and help out by being a talking sign or getting assigned to one of the places where we need some support, helping people to get through lines and that sort of thing. There are many ways to participate in the convention.
Again, your affiliate is a good starting point, and if you're interested in helping some of our first timers, I would definitely encourage you to reach out to Tracy Soforenko, as chairman of our Kenneth Jernigan Committee.
PAM ALLEN: Excellent. And this question comes from Sarah, who is a parent of a blind child, just learning about the NFB, and she is wondering about our NFB Bell Academy and how can she find out if there's one in her state.
MARK RICCOBONO: That's a great question. So the best way would be to go to our website, and I'm hoping that I'm correct in saying that NFB.org /bell will get you there. That's usually a good guess also, but NFB.org /bell will give you the information about the Bell Academies. An and if for some reason you don't find what you're looking for you can always reach out to us here at our national office by calling our main number and talking to our education group. You can call Karen Anderson, who directs our education programs, and we would be glad to help you.
And if there's not a Bell Academy in your affiliate, oftentimes we can connect you potentially with a nearby affiliate, and you might be able to work out some arrangements to participate in that.
PAM ALLEN: Excellent. I know we're all excited for Bell in just a few months.
MARK RICCOBONO: It's coming quick.
PAM ALLEN: It is.
And so this is another question from one of our participants in our leadership seminar.
So this question is from Wesley Hillman from Arkansas. And Wesley would like to know what the most important quality or characteristic every leader should have to be successful.
MARK RICCOBONO: Nothing like the philosophical questions, right?
(Laughter)
So any leader needs to be able to relate to the experience of other people. And in my opinion, the best way to do that is by making yourself, or getting comfortable with opening your own heart to other people.
If you're willing to be open and vulnerable and extend kindness to people or allow others to extend kindness to you, you're going to be much more effective at listening to other people and cutting through the noise that sometimes happens, to really understand what the situation is that someone might be dealing with. And leaders that can listen and find those, needs discover those needs and help make those connections are the ones that I think are most effective at building a team of people to work together.
But, also, it's a lot more fun. It's a lot more fun, right? Because there's a lot more joy in building the relationships. You know, leadership is not effectively done Transactionally.
You have to, at least my experience in the organized blind movement is it's much more interesting and effective when your heart's in it, and when you make your heart available to other people. I will say that doesn't make it easier. In fact, it makes it harder. Because sometimes it's going to hurt. Sometimes as a leader, someone's going to betray that kindness that you've given them.
But I can guarantee you that it's much more effective than the alternative.
PAM ALLEN: Thank you so much, President Riccobono, and thank you, again, everyone, for submitting such wonderful questions. It was so great to be together tonight. You can access the recording and all our publications at NFB.org /publications. You can contact President Riccobono at (410) 659 9314 or via email at officeofthepresident@NFB.org. Thank you so much, and I'll pass it back to you.
MARK RICCOBONO: Thank you, Pam.
And we don't have another Presidential Release Live scheduled yet, so we have to do that. You know, this has been fun. It's been too long.
PAM ALLEN: Good to be together.
MARK RICCOBONO: So we do have a lot of work in front of us, and we only have four months. Four months! Until we'll be in the middle of our national convention. So there is a lot of great things in front of us, and I'm looking forward to helping to continue change society.
I do want to remind everybody that it's Daylight Savings Time coming up this weekend. So we're going to spring forward. And with that, I'd like to offer, Pam, some of the customary endings.
And I'm hoping you'll help me out here. So Pam, what animal is the official mascot of Daylight Savings?
PAM ALLEN: I can't even guess.
MARK RICCOBONO: The watch dog, of course.
(Laughter)
MARK RICCOBONO: I was asking... I wanted to ask you, Pam, have you heard about the gardener that didn't know it was March?
PAM ALLEN: No. I'm dying to know, though, tell me more.
MARK RICCOBONO: Well, she hadn't botany plants.
PAM ALLEN: Sorry I asked.
MARK RICCOBONO: Yeah.
And, you know... St. Patrick's Day is coming up you know, and we got to acknowledge that. So what do you call an Irish spider?
PAM ALLEN: I can't even guess.
MARK RICCOBONO: Paddy Long legs.
PAM ALLEN: Ohhh!
MARK RICCOBONO: But seriously, how do you know that a St. Patrick's Day joke is funny?
PAM ALLEN: How?
MARK RICCOBONO: Well, everyone is Dublin over with laughter.
Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind!
(Cheering)
The preceding message was brought to you by Mark Riccobono, president of National Federation of the Blind. 410-659-9314. Officeofthepresident@NFB.org.
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