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LightHouse Day

Ain’t No Party Like a LightHouse Day Party!

Ain’t No Party Like a LightHouse Day Party!

Mayor London Breed stands at a podium beside LightHouse CEO, Sharon Giovinazzo and Communications Specialist, Caitlin O’Malior

It was an incredible time at yesterday’s LightHouse Day party! We are still feeling excitement and positivity from yesterday’s momentous event. Over 120 guests ventured to our headquarters in San Francisco to celebrate with us as Mayor London Breed presented LightHouse with a proclamation from the City of San Francisco, declaring June as LightHouse Month!

Caitlin holds up the LightHouse Month City Proclamation

We are grateful to have been given the opportunity to work with Mayor Breed’s Office to procure this honor for our organization. The partnership has been a special and encouraging experience, and we look forward to LightHouse, and in turn the blind, Deafblind, and low vision community, having a larger and more significant presence and recognition across the San Francisco Bay Area. Celebrating the accomplishments of our organization with the City helps us to create the blind-positive environment and standard we strive for.

So, celebrate we did! We were joined by staff, students, and supporters and friends, old and new, to enjoy an afternoon of fun, games, and food! Each department, from our Little Learners to LightHouse Industries, was there to show off the incredible services, products, and support LightHouse provides. The Adaptations Store staff assisted interested shoppers as they explored the wonderful gadgets and devices up close and in person in the store. Even our friend and local celebrity, the inventor of Bop It, Dan Klitsner came to set up his famous Bop It Button Braille Board! He shared with our attendees how the game’s inclusive nature and accessibility has changed the way he envisions games and toys should be created and played, and how it inspired his partnership with LightHouse and the Bop It For Good charity.

LightHouse Sirkin Center team member Jenn Holloway sits at the Sirkin Center booth that features the eco-friendly EPA Safer Choice award-winning cleaning products we produce and bottle

Our guests enjoyed delicious hors d’oeuvres displayed beautifully on tables and trays throughout the party, including the spectacular stuffed mushrooms that were being prepared and baked live by blind chemist, food enthusiast, and friend of LightHouse, Hoby Wedler, in our accessible training kitchen.

One of the most exciting highlights of the afternoon was the incredible sensory escape room! Adventurous partygoers stepped into a world of sensory experiences and problem solving with our Orientation & Mobility instructors as they found each clue and figured their way out of the room.
 
LightHouse Day was a wonderful way to kick off summer, LightHouse Month, and celebrate with our community. Thank you Mayor Breed, the City of San Francisco, and all our students, staff and supporters for coming out and showing up at yesterday’s event. A great time was had by all!

LightHouse Sirkin Center team member Jenn Holloway sits at the Sirkin Center booth that features the eco-friendly EPA Safer Choice award-winning cleaning products we produce and bottle

 

Blind chemist and food enthusiast, Hoby Wedler, prepares stuffed mushrooms during a live cooking demo in our accessible kitchen
A Bop It game lays on top of informational flyers about Bop It For Good and the LightHouse partnership

 

Join Us for LightHouse Day, June 8 at 3 PM

Join Us for LightHouse Day, June 8 at 3 PM

LightHouse is throwing a party! On Thursday, June 8, from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm, we are welcoming our community and our supporters to join us in celebrating our organization and the blind community at LightHouse Day.
 
We’ve come a long way in our 121 years! Since LightHouse was founded in 1902 (originally as a Reading Room for the Blind) we have grown into a multifaceted non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the independence, equality and self-reliance of people who are blind or visually impaired. From early intervention home visits with the families of blind babies we serve with our Little Learners program, to the twice awarded US Environment Protection Agency Safer Choice Award products our blind and low vision employees produce and bottle at Sirkin Center, LightHouse provides support and opportunity for blind, low vision, and deafblind individuals at every stage of life and of blindness, and we want to celebrate these accomplishments!
 
To honor LightHouse, the mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, will be presenting us with a city proclamation, declaring the month of June as LightHouse Month! We invite all of you to share this momentous event with us. Aside from this huge honor the city of San Francisco is bestowing upon us, we will have a whole plethora of fun planned for the afternoon! Join us for a live cooking demo with blind chemist Hoby Wedler, check out the latest in accessible devices from our Adaptations store, meet the inventor of Bop It, Dan Klitsner, and play some accessible games, get your hands on our tactile treasures produced in-house by our Media and Accessible Design Lab (MAD Lab) and learn to Braille your name with our Braille instructor Divina Carlson. You can even explore a sensory escape room with some of our awesome Orientation and Mobility Specialists!
 
You won’t want to miss this incredible event. RSVP to LightHouse Day, and we’ll see you on Thursday, June 8 at 3:00 pm!

RSVP for LightHouse Day

Save the Date: LightHouse Day is June 8

Save the Date: LightHouse Day is June 8

What: LightHouse Day
When: Thursday, June 8, from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Where: 1155 Market Street, 10th Floor, San Francisco
RSVP for LightHouse Day
 
Join us on Thursday, June 8, to celebrate LightHouse and the Blind Community! Enjoy an afternoon of fun and festive activities for the whole family – including a white cane obstacle course and live cooking demo! Learn how to braille your name, meet a few friendly guide dogs, explore accessible games and tactile treasures, and see the world from a whole new perspective! All are welcome. To RSVP to LightHouse Day, please follow this link.

 

Lighthouse Day to feature Mayor Breed and New Blindness Book Author, June 10

Lighthouse Day to feature Mayor Breed and New Blindness Book Author, June 10

Each year we gather friends to celebrate Lighthouse Day, honoring our 119 years of service and looking forward into the future.

For the second year we will use Zoom to keep social distance as we gather, electronically, celebrating how LightHouse has grown and diversified and reassert our belief in our community and pride in our work.

To help us do this we have invited blind author Dr. M. Leona Godin who will discuss her just-released book, There Plant Eyes: a Personal and Cultural History of Blindness.

We invite you to a conversation between Dr. Godin and LightHouse CEO Bryan Bashin to discuss the main themes in the book and learn of the author spending much of her life in San Francisco and beginning her journey into blindness there. This conversation will be a key part of the LightHouse Day celebration.

What: Lighthouse Day

When: Thursday, June 10 from noon to 1:00 pm Pacific

Where: via Zoom or phone

RSVP: To events@lighthouse-sf.org or call Andrea Vecchione at 415-694-7311. The first 10 folks to RSVP will receive a box of Quail Point chocolates, which are delicious, we can vouch for that!

From the book jacket:

From Homer to Helen Keller, from Dune to Stevie Wonder, from the invention of braille to the science of echolocation, M. Leona Godin explores the fascinating history of blindness, interweaving it with her own story of gradually losing her sight.

There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our ocular centric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what it means to be “blind.” For millennia, blind-ness has been used to signify such things as thoughtlessness (“blind faith”), irrationality (“blind rage”), and unconsciousness (“blind evolution”). But at the same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil).

Godin—who began losing her vision at age ten—illuminates the often-surprising history of both the condition of blindness and the myths and ideas that have grown up around it over the course of generations. She combines an analysis of blindness in art and culture (from King Lear to Star Wars) with a study of the science of blindness and key developments in accessibility (the white cane, embossed printing, digital technology) to paint a vivid personal and cultural history.

Adaptations LightHouse Day Discount

Don’t forget to visit Adaptations.org for all your LightHouse gear! To celebrate 119 years of service to the blind and low vision community,  Adaptations is giving 10% off during the entire month of June on all LightHouse hoodies, t-shirts and tote bags! Use the  discount code LH10 at checkout to receive your discount. Happy shopping!